Suchergebnisse

Beginning in the late nineteenth century a promising ranching sector developed on the Mato Grosso frontier with Paraguay. The most lucrative markets for cattle products were in neighboring Paraguay, Uruguay, and in the southeast of Brazil. For the most part markets were distant from the region of production, while fiscal revenues were always limited, hence the state attempted to impose its regulations and taxes as it could. Residents found their incomes were constrained at the best of times, and any "outside" impositions were simply obstacles to the prosperity of their communities and businesses. The result was that like similar regions across the globe cattle and cattle product smuggling became normal. The profits were significant enough that even local government officials were involved. The result was a long-running "battle" between the state and local producers to tap the potential promised by ranching that simultaneously promoted and inhibited the development of the region. This article explores these contradictory aspects of ranching settlement along the Brazil-Paraguay border.

In travelling through central South America, one is struck by a particular socioeconomic condition: the general economic isolation/impoverishment of many areas juxtaposed with an increasing developmental dynamism in others. This situation is explicitly addressed by many authors in this interdisciplinary volume of papers presented at the Asociación Alemana de Investigación sobre América Latina (ADLAF) Symposium in Bielefeld, Germany, in October, 1996. As explained in the introduction, the papers were selected with the intention of revealing a part of South America that is little known, less understood, and seldom of interest for students and most inhabitants of the continent. At the same time, the intention was to emphasize that the region, while encompassing four countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay), often has survived as an integrated whole, historically and economically, since the colonial era, although infrequently viewed as such by political decision-makers in the respective metropoli. This has contributed greatly to the contradiction of apparent socioeconomic stagnation contrasted with periodic bursts of extractive energy.

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