The Ecology of Oil: Environment, Labor, and the Mexican Revolution, 1900–1938

by Myrna I. Santiago

• ISBN13: 9780521115377
• ISBN10: 052111537X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-07-02
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

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 organization. Such changes, furthermore, entailed effects, including the marginalization of indigenes, environmental destruction, and tense labor relations. In the context of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), however, the results of oil development did not go unchallenged. Mexican oil workers responded to their experience by forging a politicized 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 nationalizing the foreign oil industry - heretofore reserved for President Lazaro Cardenas - and thus changing the course of Mexican history.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations, figures, and appendices

Acknowledgements

Introduction

The Huasteca Before Oil

'Paradise' and 'progress': the Huasteca in the 19th century

The Ecology of Oil

Controlling the tropical forest: the shift in land tenure systems

The anatomy of progress: changing land use patterns

'Masters of men, masters of nature': social change in the Huasteca

Challenging the Ecology of Oil

'Rude in manner': the Mexican oil workers, 1905-ô1921

Revolutionaries, conservation, and wasteland

The revolution from below: the oil unions, 1924-ô1938

Conclusion

Epilogue

Appendices

A note on the sources

Archives consulted

Selected bibliography

Index

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