An Environmental History of Latin America
- ISBN-10
- 1316224325
- ISBN-13
- 9781316224328
- Category
- History
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2007-08-27
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press
- Author
- Shawn William Miller
Description
A narration of the mutually mortal historical contest between humans and nature in Latin America. Covering a period that begins with Amerindian civilizations and concludes in the region's present urban agglomerations, the work offers an original synthesis of the current scholarship on Latin America's environmental history and argues that tropical nature played a central role in shaping the region's historical development. Human attitudes, populations, and appetites, from Aztec cannibalism to more contemporary forms of conspicuous consumption, figure prominently in the story. However, characters such as hookworms, whales, hurricanes, bananas, dirt, butterflies, guano, and fungi make more than cameo appearances. Recent scholarship has overturned many of our egocentric assumptions about humanity's role in history. Seeing Latin America's environmental past from the perspective of many centuries illustrates that human civilizations, ancient and modern, have been simultaneously more powerful and more vulnerable than previously thought.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
A Living Past: Environmental Histories of Modern Latin America
By John Soluri, Claudia Leal, José Augusto PáduaThough still a relatively young field, the study of Latin American environmental history is blossoming, as the contributions to this definitive volume demonstrate.
-
Environmental Justice in Latin America: Problems, Promise, and Practice
By David V. CarruthersScholars and activists investigate the emergence of a distinctively Latin American environmental justice movement, offering analysis and case studies that illustrate the connections between popular environmental mobilization and social ...
-
Santa Bárbara’s Legacy: An Environmental History of Huancavelica, Peru
By Nicholas A. RobinsEat from Their Labor, 50–52; C. Sempat Assadourian, El sistema de la economia colonial (Mexico City: Editorial Nueva Imagen, 1983), 15, 51, 55, 63; Sempat Assadourian, Heraclio Bonilla, Antonio Mitre and Tristan Platt.
-
A Land Between Waters: Environmental Histories of Modern Mexico
By Christopher R. BoyerThis is the first book to explore the relationship between the people and the environment of Mexico.
-
Itineraries of Expertise: Science, Technology, and the Environment in Latin America
By Andra Chastain, Timothy Lorek... the Yale Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies, the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund, ... We also thank Tricia Connolly, Lourdes Haynes, Marilyn Wilkes, Lisa Brennan, Marcy Kaufman, and the Yale Program in ...
-
Watering the Revolution: An Environmental and Technological History of Agrarian Reform in Mexico
By Mikael D. WolfeIn Watering the Revolution Mikael D. Wolfe transforms our understanding of Mexican agrarian reform through an environmental and technological history of water management in the emblematic Laguna region.
-
Fueling Mexico: Energy and Environment, 1850–1950
By Germán VergaraGermán Vergara shows how the decision to power the country's economy with fossil fuels locked Mexico in a cycle of endless, fossil-fueled growth - with serious environmental and social consequences.
-
A Companion to Latin American History
By Thomas H. HollowayThe Companion to Latin American History collects the work of leading experts in the field to create a single-source overview of the diverse history and current trends in the study of Latin America.
-
Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia
By Claudia LealClare, Patricia. “Un balance de la historia ambiental latinoamericana.” Revista de Historia 59–60 (January–December 2009): 185–201. Cleary, David. “Towards an Environmental History of the Amazon: From Prehistory to the Nineteenth ...
-
The Social Causes of Environmental Destruction in Latin America
By William H. Durham, Michael PainterAn important and timely study of environmental degradation in Central and South America