Claudio Véliz

Claudio Véliz (born 21 July 1930, Viña del Mar, Chile)^[1] is an economic historian, sociologist and author from Chile, who has held numerous academic posts in various institutions of higher learning including La Trobe University (Australia), Harvard and Boston University.

Life and work

Educated at the Mackay School (Valparaíso, Chile) and the Grange School (Santiago, Chile), he completed a Bachelor of Science degree in the University of Florida and subsequently completed a PhD in Economic History at the London School of Economics with a dissertation on "Arthur Young and the English Landed Interest".

He has written extensively on the achievements of countries that started out as colonies of the British Empire. His book The New World of the Gothic Fox points to factors such as the Spanish counter-reformation traditions and culture as an inhibitor of social innovation and economic development in Latin America in contrast to the successful development of British North America.

Professor Véliz has also been a major critic of anti-colonialist historians such Manning Clark - a principal Australian historian. He considers Clark’s historical analysis as politically motivated and lacking an objective appreciation of the extension of Great Britain’s civilization into Australia.^[2]

Academic posts held

• Professor of Economic History, University of Chile, 1956–1960
• Senior Research Fellow, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1961–1966
• Founder and Director of the Institute of International Studies, University of Chile 1966-1972
• Professor of International Politics, University of Chile, 1966–1972
• Professor of International Politics, Chilean War Academy, 1968–1972
• Professor of Sociology and Dean of the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia (1972–1989)
• Visiting Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles, 1969-1970.
• Visiting Professor of History, Harvard University, 1979-1980.
• Professor of History and Director of the University Professors at Boston University (1990–2002)

Publications (partial list)

• Historia de la Marina Mercante de Chile (1961)
• The Politics of Conformity in Latin America (1967)
• Latin America and the Caribbean: a handbook (1968)
• Centralism, Nationalism, and Integration (1969)
• Obstacles to Change in Latin America (1965)
• The Centralist Industrialization of Latin America (1974)
• Dependent Prosperity: a problem for Australians (1976)
• Obstaculos para la transformacion de America Latina (1978)
• The Centralist Tradition in Latin America (1980)
• La tradición centralista de America Latina (1995)
• Monuments for an Age Without Heroes – The Boston, Melbourne, Oxford Conversations on Culture and Society (with Hellmut Wohl)
• The Worth of Nations – The Boston, Melbourne, Oxford Conversations on Culture and Society (with Bernard Levin)
• The New World of the Gothic Fox: Culture and Economy in English and Spanish America (1994)
• Post-modernism: origins, consequences and reconsiderations (2002)

References

External links

• Anglosphere Institute - Anglosphere Institute Lecture by Claudio Véliz, October 11, 2006
• "George Bush and History's Croakers" by Claudio Véliz, Quadrant April 2009 Volume LIII Number 4