Watering the Revolution An Environmental and Technological History of Agrarian Reform in Mexico

About this book

In 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. Drawing on extensive archival research in Mexico and the United States, Wolfe shows how during the long Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) engineers' distribution of water paradoxically undermined land distribution. In so doing, he highlights the intrinsic tension engineers faced between the urgent need for water conservation and the imperative for development during the contentious modernization of the Laguna's existing flood irrigation method into one regulated by high dams, concrete-lined canals, and motorized groundwater pumps. This tension generally resolved in favor of development, which unintentionally diminished and contaminated the water supply while deepening existing rural social inequalities by dividing people into water haves and have-nots, regardless of their access to land. By uncovering the varied motivations behind the Mexican government's decision to use invasive and damaging technologies despite knowing they were ecologically unsustainable, Wolfe tells a cautionary tale of the long-term consequences of short-sighted development policies.

Contents

Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1

Part I. El Agua de la Revolucion (The Water of the Revolution)
1. River of Revolution 23
2. The Debate over Damming and Pumping El Agua de la Revolucion 59
3. Distributing El Agua de la Revolucion 95

Part II. The Second Agrarian Reform
4. Life and Work on the Revolutionary Dam Site and Ejidos 131
5. (Counter)Revolutionary Dam, Pumps, and Pesticides 163
6. Rehabilitating El Agua de la Revolucion 191

Epilogue: The Legacies of Water Use and Abuse in Neoliberal Mexico 219
Appendixes 231
Notes 239
Bibliography 287
Index 305

Customer Reviews

Biography

Mikael D. Wolfe is Assistant Professor of History at Stanford University.