Territories, Commodities and Knowledges: Latin American Environmental Histories in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

This book examines emerging methodologies and conceptual debates within the environmental history of Latin America. Issues addressed include the territorial expansion of the state and its impact on environmental resources and indigenous populations; environmental transformation (lake-drainage projects in central Mexico, the expansion of sugar-cane production in Cuba, and soil-sedimentation issues); and landscape "improvements" brought about by technological change (banana-breeding schemes, the breeding of Zebu cattle in central Brazil, and the introduction of plants to South America). This volume places the specific case-studies within the field's main themes, and relates them to similar historic environmental developments in North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. Contributors include Stephen Bell (UCLA), Reinaldo Funes Monzote (Fundación Antonio Núñez Jiménez de la Naturaleza y el Hombre, Cuba), Stefania Gallini (Universidad Nacional, Colombia), Nikolas Kozloff (CUNY Brooklyn College), Karl Offen (University of Oklahoma), John Soluri (Carnegie-Mellon University), Alejandro Tortolero Villaseñor (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa, Mexico), and Robert W. Wilcox (Northern Kentucky University).