Building the borderlands : a transnational history of irrigated cotton along the Mexico-Texas border / Casey Walsh.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Walsh, Casey.

Series:

Environmental history series ; no. 22.

Environmental history series ; no. 22

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cotton farmers--Mexican-American Border Region--History.

Cotton farmers.

Cotton trade--Mexican-American Border Region--History.

Cotton trade.

Irrigation farming--Mexican-American Border Region--History.

Irrigation farming.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (247 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

College Station : Texas A&M University Press, c2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Cotton, crucial to the economy of the American South, has also played a vital role in the making of the Mexican north. The Lower Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) Valley irrigation zone on the border with Texas in northern Tamaulipas, Mexico, was the centerpiece of the Cardenas government's effort to make cotton the basis of the national economy. This irrigation district, built and settled by Mexican Americans repatriated from Texas, was a central feature of Mexico's effort to control and use the waters of the international river for irrigated agriculture. Drawing on previously unexplored archival sources, Casey Walsh discusses the relations among various groups comprising the "social field" of cotton production in the borderlands. By describing the complex relationships among these groups, Walsh contributes to a clearer understanding of capitalism and the state, of transnational economic forces, of agricultural and water issues in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands, and of the environmental impacts of economic development. Building the Borderlands crosses a number of disciplinary, thematic, and regional frontiers, integrating perspectives and literature from the United States and Mexico, from anthropology and history, and from political, economic, and cultural studies. Walsh's important transnational study will enjoy a wide audience among scholars of Latin American and Western U.S. history, the borderlands, and environmental and agricultural history, as well as anthropologists and others interested in the environment and water rights.

Contents:

Introduction : social fields of cotton

Cotton and capitalism in the borderlands, 1820-1920

Developmentalism in Northern Mexico, 1910-1934

The social field of development : land and labor in the Río Bravo/Rio Grande Delta, 1780-1930

Crisis and development in the Río Bravo Delta, 1930-1935

Cardenista engineering, the Anderson Clayton Company, and rural unrest in the Río Bravo Delta, 1935-1939

Repatriation in the Río Bravo Delta, 1935-1940

Defining development in the Río Bravo Delta, 1940-1963

Conclusion : historicizing the borderlands.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-60344-436-X

OCLC:

698589272