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An exploration of the social and environmental consequences of oil extraction in the tropical rainforest. Using northern Veracruz as a case study, the author argues that oil production generated major historical and environmental transformations in land tenure systems and uses, and social organisation. Such changes, furthermore, entailed effects, including the marginalisation of indigenes, environmental destruction, and tense labour relations. In the context of the Mexican Revolution (19101920), however, the results of oil development did not go unchallenged. Mexican oil workers responded to their experience by forging a politicised culture and a radical left militancy that turned 'oil country' into one of the most significant sites of class conflict in revolutionary Mexico. Ultimately, the book argues, Mexican oil workers deserve their share of credit for the 1938 decree nationalising the foreign oil industry - heretofore reserved for President Lazaro Cardenas - and thus changing the course of Mexican history

Primera Parte. Historias de países, regiones y paisajes. Las revoluciones ecológicas de México / Chris Boyer, Martha Micheline Cariño Olvera. El gran caribe en la metamorfosis de la tropicalidad / Reinaldo Funes Monzote. Improntas y remanentes indígenas en los Andes tropicales / Nicolás Cuvi. El dilema de la "cuna espléndida": naturaleza y territorio en la construcción de Brasil / José Augusto Pádua. Selvas: amenazantes y amenazadas / Claudia Leal. El muro y la hiedra: narrativas ambientales de un continente urbano / Lise Sedrez, Regina Horta Duarte -- Segunda Parte. Historias transversales. Cocina casera: campesinos, cocina v diversidad agrícola / John Soluri. Un continente cubierto de pasto: ganadería y transformación del paisaje / Shaw Van Ausdal, Robell W. Wilcox. Desde el fondo de la tierra: trabajadores, naturaleza y comunidades en las industrias minera y petrolera / Myrna Santiago. Prodigalidad y sostenibilidad: las ciencias ambientales y la búsqueda del desarrollo / Stuart McCook. Parques latinoamericanos: naturaleza profunda, despoblamiento y el ritmo variable de la conservación / Emily Wakild.

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