Revolutionary Parks: Conservation, Social Justice, and Mexico's National Parks, 1910-1940
By 1940, Mexico had more national parks than any country in the world and I demonstrate that rather than separate processes, enacting institutions to support social justice and nature protection went hand in hand. I argue that the radical reconfiguration of society articulated in the Constitution of 1917 and the policies of President Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-1940) depended upon a rational and inclusive understanding of the natural world. Cárdenas and his reformers created a set of environmental policies that embraced nature’s value and acted upon nagging concerns over its fragility. Yet, revolutionary instincts for justice and the mounting moral reverence for rural people precluded policies, such as the exclusion and eviction of prior residents from parks that might have elevated nature at the expense of humanity. In contrast to other regions of the world, Mexican parks were not swaths of wilderness; they were part of the fabric of a revolutionary society. Rather than a story of environmental declension, I hope to provide fresh insight into working relationships among communities, governments, and their resources.
Revolutionary Parks was awarded the Alfred B. Thomas prize for best book on a Latin American subject in 2011 by the Southeastern Council for Latin American Studies. It was chosen by the Conference of Latin American History as the recipient of the Elinor Melville Prize in Latin American Environmental History. And it was honored by the Forest History Society as the best book in forest or conservation history with the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser award.
So far, it has been reviewed in the Hispanic American Historical Review, American Historical Review, Environmental History, Journal of Latin America and Caribbean Anthropology, Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña, and Sustentabilidade em Debate.
You can buy it here or here!
Revolutionary Parks was awarded the Alfred B. Thomas prize for best book on a Latin American subject in 2011 by the Southeastern Council for Latin American Studies. It was chosen by the Conference of Latin American History as the recipient of the Elinor Melville Prize in Latin American Environmental History. And it was honored by the Forest History Society as the best book in forest or conservation history with the Charles A. Weyerhaeuser award.
So far, it has been reviewed in the Hispanic American Historical Review, American Historical Review, Environmental History, Journal of Latin America and Caribbean Anthropology, Historia Ambiental Latinoamericana y Caribeña, and Sustentabilidade em Debate.
You can buy it here or here!