A Living Past: Environmental Histories of Modern Latin America / Edition 1

by John Soluri, Claudia Leal, Jos Augusto P dua

Overview

Though still a relatively young field, the study of Latin American environmental history is blossoming, as the contributions to this definitive volume demonstrate. Bringing together thirteen leading experts on the region, A Living Past synthesizes a wide range of scholarship to offer new perspectives on environmental change in Latin America and the Spanish Caribbean since the nineteenth century. Each chapter provides insightful, up-to-date syntheses of current scholarship on critical countries and ecosystems (including Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, the tropical Andes, and tropical forests) and such cross-cutting themes as agriculture, conservation, mining, ranching, science, and urbanization. Together, these studies provide valuable historical contexts for making sense of contemporary environmental challenges facing the region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781785333903
Publisher:	Berghahn Books
Publication date:	02/19/2018
Series:	Environment in History: International Perspectives , #13
Pages:	310
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

John Soluri is Director of Global Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, where he teaches courses on food, energy, environment and commodities in Latin America. He is the author of Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Environmental Change, and Consumption in Honduras and the United States (2006).

Claudia Leal is Associate Professor at the Department of History at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. She has studied rainforest regions and the formation of societies after emancipation from slavery. She is currently researching the history of Colombian nature conservation.

José-Augusto Pádua is Professor of Environmental History at the Institute of History, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where he is also coordinator of the Laboratory of History and Nature. From 2010 to 2015, he was President of the Brazilian Association of Research and Graduate Studies on Environment and Society.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations, Tables, and Figures
List of Maps
Preface

Introduction: Finding the “Latin American” in Latin American Environmental History
John Soluri, Claudia Leal, José Augusto Pádua

Chapter 1. Mexico’s Ecological Revolutions
Chris Boyer and Martha Micheline Cariño Olvera

Chapter 2. The Greater Caribbean and the Transformation of Tropicality
Reinaldo Funes Monzote

Chapter 3. Indigenous Imprints and Remnants in the Tropical Andes
Nicolás Cuvi

Chapter 4. The Dilemma of the “Splendid Cradle”: Nature and Territory in the Construction of Brazil
José Augusto Pádua

Chapter 5. From Threatening to Threatened Jungles
Claudia Leal

Chapter 6. The Ivy and the Wall: Environmental Narratives from an Urban Continent
Lise Sedrez and Regina Horta Duarte

Chapter 7. Home Cooking: Campesinos, Cuisine, and Agrodiversity
John Soluri

Chpater 8. Hoofprints: Cattle Ranching and Landscape Transformation
Shawn Van Ausdal and Robert W. Wilcox

Chapter 9. Extraction Stories: Workers, Nature, and Communities in the Mining and Oil Industries
Myrna I. Santiago

Chapter 10. Prodigality and Sustainability: The Environmental Sciences and the Quest for Development
Stuart McCook

Chapter 11. A Panorama of Parks: Deep Nature, Depopulation, and the Cadence of Conserving Nature
Emily Wakild

Epilogue: Latin American Environmental History in Global Perspective
J.R. McNeill

Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"There is no book out there that matches the scope, detail, and comprehensiveness of A Living Past. Especially for an edited collection of this kind, the consistency and quality of the scholarship are remarkable." • Shawn Miller, Brigham Young University

"With a refreshing variety of approaches, these essays represent the best of an emerging international network of scholars dedicated to Latin America. Together, they contain not just histories of decline, but a rich diversity of narratives." • Joachim Radkau, University of Bielefeld

From the Publisher