Strangers on Familiar Soil: Rediscovering the Chile-California Connection

by Edward Dallam Melillo

Overview

This groundbreaking history explores the many unrecognized, enduring linkages between the state of California and the country of Chile. The book begins in 1786, when a French expedition brought the potato from Chile to California, and it concludes with Chilean president Michelle Bachelet’s diplomatic visit to the Golden State in 2008. During the intervening centuries, new crops, foods, fertilizers, mining technologies, laborers, and ideas from Chile radically altered California's development. In turn, Californian systems of servitude, exotic species, educational programs, and capitalist development strategies dramatically shaped Chilean history.
 
Edward Dallam Melillo develops a new set of historical perspectives—tracing eastward-moving trends in U.S. history, uncovering South American influences on North America’s development, and reframing the Western Hemisphere from a Pacific vantage point. His innovative approach yields transnational insights and recovers long-forgotten connections between the peoples and ecosystems of Chile and California.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300216486
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	10/20/2015
Series:	Yale Agrarian Studies Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Edward Dallam Melillo is associate professor of history and environmental studies, Amherst College. He lives in Northampton, MA.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Acknowledgments ix

Notes on Terminology xiii

Maps xv

Introduction 1

Part I Chile and the Making of California

1 Cordilleras in Mind 15

2 AVenice of Pine 33

3 Chilecito and Spanishtown 47

4 Manifest Destiny at the End of a Rope 68

5 Supplementing the Soil 92

Part II California and the Making of Chile

6 A Railroad in the Clouds 113

7 Mountains of Infamy, Vines of Plenty 137

8 The Davis Boys and the Fruits of Neohberalism 155

9 Breaking the Rule of Exceptions 182

Epilogue: Worlds Not Realized 196

List of Abbreviations 203

Notes 205

Bibliography 253

Index 309

Editorial Reviews

09/28/2015
In careful and well-organized prose, Melillo (Eco-Cultural Networks in the British Empire), an associate professor of history and environmental studies at Amherst College, argues that mining technologies and farming techniques from Chile helped alter California, especially during the Gold Rush, and in turn the state affected much of the way commercial farming took place in Chile, which is now “covered with artificially irrigated vineyards, trim orchards, and modern packing plants.” The first half of Melillo’s discussion deals with Chile’s influences on California; the second half looks at the flip side. Both prove fascinating, with Melillo highlighting the regions’ geographical similarities. Referencing a wide array of sources, Melillo recounts the voyages of thousands of Chileans to San Francisco beginning in 1848, drawn to the prospect of gold. Decades later, California vintners would affect the work of Chilean winemakers, even forming partnerships and joint ventures. Subsequent improvements in soil process and trade agreements also helped Chile grow agriculturally. These days, Chile dominates global produce markets during the northern hemisphere’s winter season. By paying attention to Chile and California’s mirror-image geographies as well as their long-term environmental and social connections, Melillo effectively recontextualizes the development patterns of the Americas. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

A fascinating story of how Chile and California, on separate continents, sharing comparable climates and geography, have had dramatic reciprocal social and environmental impacts, initially fueled by the California Gold Rush.”—Harold Mooney, Stanford University

Harold Mooney

Melillo's pithy book insightfully explores how California helped make Chile and how Chile helped make California over the past two centuries. Politically astute, ecologically attuned, and easy to read.”—J. R. McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914

J. R. McNeill

Co-winner of the 2016 Caughey Western History Prize, given by the Western History Association

Western History Association - Caughey Western History Prize

Melillo brilliantly centers this hemispheric history around Chile and California—two places increasingly connected over the past 200 years by crops, technologies, people, and ideas. Strangers on Familiar Soil demonstrates the tremendous potential and necessity of transnational and comparative history. This is a stunning accomplishment.”—David Igler, author of The Great Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush

David Igler

Melillo has written what could be called a double-helix history that reveals the environmental, social, and commercial bonds between Chile and California. It is a major contribution to the emerging field of Pacific World history.”—Christopher Boyer, author of Political Landscapes: Forests, Conservation, and Community in Mexico

Christopher Boyer

Named an Honor book by the Denver Public Library for the 2016 Caroline Bancroft History Prize.

Denver Public Library - Bancroft History Prize

This is a gem of a book: deeply researched, elegantly written, original in its conception, beautiful in its execution.”—Raymond Craib, Cornell University

Raymond Craib

An empirically rich, well written, and wide-ranging history that provides a novel perspective on important transnational connections in the Americas.”—John Soluri, Carnegie Mellon University

John Soluri

"A pathbreaking environmental history of the long-standing connections between Chile and California."—Thomas Klubock, Journal of American History

Journal of American History - Thomas Klubock

Strangers on Familiar Soil, in its many excavations of the things that did and still connect Chile and California, will no doubt inspire future work in transnational history and the Pacific world.”—Lori A. Flores, Agricultural History

Agricultural History - Lori A. Flores

This wonderful book weaves together captivating anecdotes with analysis of environmental interactions and economic exchanges between California and Chile in order to reimagine the making of the Americas.”—Foreign Affairs

Foreign Affairs

In analyzing the spiritual parallels between Chile and California, Melillo excels. His writing is brisk and concise . . . It is testament to Melillo’s skill as a historian, and a service to Californians and Chileans alike, that he was able to uncover—and preserve—this rich history.”—Benjamin Russell, Americas Quarterly

Americas Quarterly - Benjamin Russell