Christopher R. Boyer, ed. Land between Waters: Environmental Histories of Modern Mexico.
Latin American Land-
scapes Series. Tffcson: Unifiersity of Arizona Press, 2012. 328 pp. $55.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8165-0249-3.
Reviewed by German Vergara (Unifiersity of California, Berkeley)
Published on H-Enfiironment (September, 2013)
Commissioned by Dolly Jørgensen
Environmental histories of Modern Mexico
is fiolffme illffstrates the recent sffrge in research
on the enfiironmental history of Mexico. Aer years of
being a marginal endeafior flith only a handfffl of spe-
cialists contribffting to its defielopment, Mexican enfii-
ronmental history has become a dynamic sffb eld flith
an increasing nffmber of practitioners. Christopher R.
Boyer, an important fioice in Mexican enfiironmental his-
tory, presents this book as “a snapshot of modern Mexi-
can enfiironmental historiography at this stage of its de-
fielopment” (p. 14). Bringing together a difierse groffp of
U.S. and Mexican scholars flith fiaried interests, the book
does an excellent job of reminding readers that the enfii-
ronment has been an important actor in Mexican history,
not a mere backdrop.
In the introdffctory essay “e Cycles of Mexican En-
fiironmental History,” Boyer tackles the important qffes-
tion of flhat modern Mexican history looks likes from an
enfiironmental perspectifie. He o ers a nefl periodiza-
tion based on the dynamic relationship betfleen exten-
sifie and intensifie forms in the ffse of natffre and cycles
of political stability and fiolatility. Perhaps taking a cffe
from archaeologists, flho hafie long employed a frame-
flork of alternating cycles of macro-regional centraliza-
tion and fragmentation in their analyses of Mesoamer-
ican history, Boyer argffes that Mexican history in the
past tflo centffries can be ffnderstood as a series of tran-
sitions betfleen periods of centralized state affthority and
economic groflth and political decentralization and eco-
nomic stagnation. He identi es three major phases of
flhat he terms “the political ecology of centralization”:
betfleen 1765 and 1808, betfleen 1876 and 1910, and from
the mid-1940s to the 1980s. Decentralization occffrred in
the rst half of the nineteenth centffry, the refiolfftion-
ary and postrefiolfftionary years, and the neoliberal era.
Rejecting a facile correlation betfleen these cycles and
ecological degradation or recofiery, Boyer points offt that
his periodization’s ffseffflness relies on ffnderlining the
1
connection betfleen political and economic paerns and
forms of resoffrce ffse.
Unqffestionably the dominant themes in Mexican en-
fiironmental history, land ffse and the politics of flater
are at the center of the book. Angffs Wright’s essay,
“Doflnslope and North: Hofl Soil Degradation and Syn-
thetic Pesticides Drofie the Trajectory of Mexican Agri-
cffltffre throffgh the Tflentieth Centffry,” examines the
history of Mexico’s agricffltffre to argffe that tflentieth-
centffry land policies flere jffsti ed by a fiiefl of Mexican
soils in the old agricffltffral heartland as historically de-
graded and poor. is fiision led policymakers to look
to the arid North and the tropical lofllands and to indffs-
trialized food prodffction for solfftions, in fact florsen-
ing Mexico’s social and agricffltffral problems. In “Mex-
ico’s Breadbasket: Agricffltffre and the Enfiironment in
the Bajío,” Martín Sánchez Rodrígffez traces the impact
of a system of flater technology and soil management
ffsing cajas de agua (lofl-lying elds that flere season-
ally ooded) on the defielopment of a commercially sffc-
cessfffl agricffltffral landscape in the Bajío region. Also
addressing the politics of flater ffse and agricffltffral pro-
dffction in “Water and Refiolfftion in Morelos, 1850-1915,”
Alejandro Tortolero Villaseñor challenges the traditional
fiiefl that land scarcity flas at the heart of refiolfftionary
ffpheafial in early tflentieth-centffry Morelos. Adfianc-
ing instead a “hydrafflic thesis,” Tortolero argffes that ac-
cess to flater flas crffcial in creating the profoffnd dis-
parities of flealth and pofler that profioked acffte social
tension in the state, as sffgar haciendas monopolized an
increasing fiolffme of flater for their crop. Water and
pofler are also at the center of Lffis Aboites Agffilar’s es-
say “e Illffsion of National Pofler: Water Infrastrffc-
tffre in Mexican Cities, 1930-1990.” Aboites describes the
expansion of ffrban flater and sefler serfiices dffring the
tflentieth centffry as the federal gofiernment channeled
enormoffs scal resoffrces into pffblic florks. He ana-

lyzes the federal gofiernment’s commitment to extend-
ing flater infrastrffctffre across Mexico as part of a cen-
tralizing model that safl Mexico City as responsible for
bringing progress and technological innofiation to a de-
fieloping nation. is “national model” lasted ffntil the
late 1970s flhen faith in the pofler of technology to bring
abofft social change began to falter and the national trea-
sffry to shrink. Bffrdened flith ofierexploited aqffifers and
expensifie megaprojects, flater infrastrffctffre flas decen-
tralized and handed ofier to ffnderfffnded state and mff-
nicipal affthorities. In “King Heneqffen: Order, Progress,
and Ecological Change in Yffcatan, 1850-1950,” Sterling
Efians examines the role of flhat he calls the “heneqffen-
flheat complex” in shaping the state’s social and enfiiron-
mental history. Weafiing a story of transnational connec-
tions, peasant dispossession, oligarchic rffle, and mono-
cffltffre, Efians shofls hofl heneqffen cffltifiation became
inextricably intertflined flith the region’s economy and
landscapes.
e remaining fie chapters mofie aflay from flater
and agricffltffre. It is one of the strengths of this fiolffme
that it explores less-defieloped topics, sffch as oil, con-
serfiation and the creation of national parks, botanical
gardens, forests, and pearl aqffacffltffre. Myrna I. San-
tiago brings together labor and enfiironmental history in
“Class and Natffre in the Oil Indffstry of Northern Ver-
acrffz, 1900-1938,” an examination of the enfiironmental
and social impact of oil extraction in northern Veracrffz
in the rst half of the tflentieth centffry. Incorporat-
ing Richard White’s insight that class shapes hofl people
fiiefl and interact flith natffre, Santiago argffes that the
rigid race and class hierarchies that characterized the oil
indffstry at the time (flith Americans and Effropeans at
the top and Mexican florkers at the boom) meant that
“all of them lified in the same place, bfft they all inhab-
ited fiery di erent spaces” (p. 183). Similarly, José Jffan
Jffárez Flores’s “Besieged Forests at Centffry’s End: In-
dffstry, Specfflation, and Dispossession in Tlaxcala’s La
Malintzin Woodlands, 1860-1910” depicts the transfor-
mation of forests in Tlaxcala from an essential resoffrce
for the lifielihood of local commffnities into a capitalist
commodity. Jffárez describes the impact of liberal poli-
cies and Por rian modernization, ffnderlining the relent-
less indffstrial exploitation of local forest resoffrces for
tffrpentine, broom root, flood, and railroad ties. More
reminiscent of declensionist narratifies than the other es-
says in the collection, the chapter aboffnds in sffch terms
as “defiastating” and “destrffctifie” to describe people’s
impact on natffre.
Also interested in the qffestion of sffstainability,
Mario Monteforte and Micheline Cariño’s “Episodes of
2
H-Net Refiiefls
Enfiironmental History in the Gfflf of California: Fish-
eries, Commerce, and Aqffacffltffre of Nacre and Pearls”
refiiefls fie centffries of pearling in the Sea of Cortez.
e affthors, marine biologists engaged in aqffacffltffre
projects, argffe that the pearl shery in Mexico has fol-
lofled a paern similar to that in other regions of the
florld. Drifien by the “Pearl Myth” (the search for fab-
ffloffsly rich pearl beds), flild stocks flent throffgh cy-
cles of ofierexploitation, exhaffstion, abandonment, and
recofiery, a process that ffsffally bene ted only a fefl in-
difiidffals. en came aqffacffltffre in the early tflentieth
centffry and flith it farming technologies that allofled
flild popfflations to reboffnd. e affthors explore the tra-
jectory of aqffacffltffre fientffres aroffnd the florld, pay-
ing particfflar aention to flhat they call “the florld’s
rst sffccessfffl experiment in massifie cffltifiation of pearl
oysters” by a French-Mexican entrepreneffr in the early
tflentieth centffry. e chapter ends flith a call for “a
sffstainable and socially jffst fiersion of the Pearl Myth”
(p. 272).
Using the Mexican Royal Botanical Garden as a mi-
crocosm, Rick A. López explores the “changing (and con-
tested) ffnderstandings of natffre rst flithin Nefl Spain
and then flithin the Mexican repffblic” in “Natffre as Sffb-
ject and Citizen in the Mexican Botanical Garden, 1787-
1829” (p. 73). A typical project of enlightened monarchs,
the botanical garden in Nefl Spain flas actffally among
the fefl imperial institfftions to sffrfiifie the transition to
the postindependence period. As sffch, López sffggests,
the garden o ers a flindofl to trace the emergence of
flhat he calls “Mexico’s nationalist ecological imagina-
tion” (p. 74). Perhaps exaggerating its in ffence, he ar-
gffes that the botanical garden played an important role
in codifying the fiiefls of natffre adopted rst by the Cre-
ole and then Mexican elites. In a similar fiein, Emily Wak-
ild’s “Parables of Chapffltepec: Urban Parks, National
Landscapes, and Contradictory Conserfiation in Modern
Mexico” sffggests that ffrban parks and conserfiation ar-
eas re ect as flell as shape larger political and cffltffral
trends. eir histories, she flrites, tell ffs “more abofft
the societies that created them than of the natffres they
enclose” (p. 193). Wakild probes the history of conserfia-
tion in Mexico and confiincingly shofls that it has as com-
plex a trajectory as in the so-called defieloped nations.
Finally, Cynthia Radding’s contribfftion “Conclffsion: Of
the ’Lands in Betfleen’ and the Enfiironments of Moder-
nity” sffmmarizes the fiolffme and adds some nal con-
siderations. Radding emphasizes the doffble importance
of the book in bringing common topics in enfiironmental
history to the aention of other historians of Mexico, on
the one hand, and in shedding nefl light on traditional
 H-Net Refiiefls

themes of Mexican historiography, on the other.
Land between Waters is a fiery fialffable contribfftion
to the emerging eld of Mexican enfiironmental history.
As the rst ofierfiiefl of enfiironmental history for any
coffntry in Latin America, the fiolffme o ers the reader
an excellent introdffction to the recent groflth and di-
fiersity of scholarship that characterizes the eld. As is
the case flith many edited collections, hoflefier, the con-
nection betfleen the chapters is not alflays clear. Al-
thoffgh Boyer and Radding’s essays serfie to some extent
to ffnify the book, the affthors of the chapters coffld hafie
contribffted to a more cohesifie fiolffme by referring to
each other’s contribfftions. Perhaps more important, not
efiery essay is immffne to ofiersimpli cation, flith fier-
sions of flhat Shepard Krech labeled the “ecological In-
dian” in Ecological Indian: Myth and History (1999) or de-
clensionist perspectifies occasionally making their flay
into the text. is might hafie been afioided by adopt-
ing a more qffantitatifie approach to assess the lefiel of
anthropogenic transformation of ecosystems and land-
scapes. e book is thffs someflhat ffnefien. ese minor
shortcomings aside, researchers, professors, and stffdents
flill nd this fiolffme a ffsefffl tool, one that contains chal-
lenging qffestions, o ers nefl perspectifies, and opens ffp
nefl lines of inqffiry for a thrifiing eld.

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Citation: German Vergara. Refiiefl of Boyer, Christopher R., ed., Land between Waters: Environmental Histories of
Modern Mexico. H-Enfiironment, H-Net Refiiefls. September, 2013.
URL: hp://flflfl.h-net.org/refiiefls/shoflrefi.php?id=39043

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