Teodoro Moscoso And Puerto Rico's Operation Bootstrap [Hardcover]

Fascinating. . . . [Maldonado's] extensive interviews of Moscoso are unique and help make this a highly original work. . . . He deserves this amount of attention as the man who, next to Luis Mu?oz, was the dominant figure in the Puerto Rico renaissance of the 1950s. --Thomas L. Hughes, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Maldonado does a superb job in presenting Teodoro Moscoso's role generally and the decisive actions he took at critical junctures in particular. --Rafael de Jes?s Toro, dean of business administration, Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, and professor of economics, University of Puerto Rico

A. W. Maldonado tells the story of Puerto Rico's extraordinary climb from poverty to economic success. Operation Bootstrap, a program conceived, promoted, and implemented by Teodoro Moscoso (1910-1992), succeeded in attracting worldwide capital investment that by the mid-1950s had transformed the island from an economic backwater into a bustling industrial society. Though much of the credit went to Puerto Rico's governor, Luis Mu?oz Mar?n, Maldonado focuses on Moscoso to describe how and why the economic miracle took place.
Moscoso was deeply involved in all aspects of the Puerto Rican economy and culture, and Maldonado follows his relationships and battles on a number of fronts, from his initial differences with Rexford Tugwell, the last American governor of the island, to conflicts with Governor Mu?oz, who was constantly concerned that Moscoso was pushing change too quickly. In the worlds of business and culture, Maldonado shows how Moscoso employed advertising guru David Ogilvy to propagate the image of a people engaged in a cultural renaissance. He also highlights Moscoso's decisive actions at critical junctures (such as his success in pushing tax exemptions and tourism in the late 1940s) and his personal persuasiveness, as with Pablo Casals, who at the age of eighty was persuaded to establish his Casals Festival at San Jul#