Building the Borderlands: A Transnational History of Irrigated Cotton along the Mexico-Texas Border (Volume 22) (Environmental History Series)

Cotton, crucial to the economy of the American South, has also played a vital role in the making of the Mexican north. The Lower Ro Bravo (Rio Grande) Valley irrigation zone on the border with Texas in northern Tamaulipas, Mexico, was the centerpiece of the Crdenas governments 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 Mexicos 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. Walshs 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. 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. Cotton, crucial to the economy of the American South, has also played a vital role in the making of the Mexican north. This title discusses the relations among various groups comprising the ""social field"" of cotton production in the borderlands. It is suitable for scholars of Latin American and Western US history and the borderlands.