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Border Oasis - Water and the Political Ecology of the Colorado River Delta, 1940-1975 (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R1,459
Discovery Miles 14 590
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Border Oasis - Water and the Political Ecology of the Colorado River Delta, 1940-1975 (Hardcover)
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The environmental history of the Colorado River delta during the
past century is one of the most important--and most
neglected--stories of the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. Thanks to
entrepreneurs such as William E. Smythe, the surrounding desert in
Arizona, California, Sonora, and Baja California has been
transformed into an agricultural oasis, but not without significant
ecological, political, economic, and social consequences. Evan Ward
explores the rapid development of this region, examining the ways
in which regional politics and international relations created a
garden in the Mexicali, Yuma, and Imperial Valleys while
simultaneously threatening the life of the Colorado River. Tracing
the transformation of the delta by irrigated agribusiness through
the twentieth century, he draws on untapped archival resources from
both sides of the border to offer a new look at one of the world's
most contested landscapes. "Border Oasis" tells how two very
different nations developed the delta into an agricultural oasis at
enormous environmental cost. Focusing on the years 1940 to
1975--including the disastrous salinity crisis of the 1960s and
1970s--it combines Mexican, Native American, and U.S. perspectives
to demonstrate that the political and diplomatic influences on the
delta played as much a part in the region's transformation as did
irrigation. Ward reveals how mistrust among political and economic
participants has been fueled by conflict between national and local
officials on both sides of the border, by Mexican nationalism, and
by a mutual recognition that water is the critical ingredient for
regional economic development. With overemphasis on development in
both nations leading to an ecological breaking point, Ward
demonstrates that conflicting interests have made sound binational
management of the delta nearly impossible. By weaving together all
of these threads that have produced the fabric of today's lower
Colorado, his study shows that the environmental history of the
delta must be understood as a whole, not from the standpoint of
only one of many competing interests.
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