Bibliography

This is a study of the origin and development of the steam navigation in Barcelona (which is to say in Catalonia and even in Spain) through the history of the firms and the investors. With no references to labour or crews, it focuses first in the entrepreneurs that adopted the new technology and invested in it in in the 1830´s - 1850’s. Later it describes the formation of big companies), the building of the steam fleet after the liberalization of the market (the permissions to import foreign ships, and the relationship between the capital invested in shipping companies and the capital invested in other trades, and the colonial origin of most of this investors. This book helps us to understand the transition from sail to steam from the economic point of view