Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940 (2015)
Power and Control in the Imperial Valley examines the evolution of irrigated farming in the Imperial-Mexicali Valley, an arid desert straddling the California-Baja California border. Bisected by the international boundary line, the valley drew American investors determined to harness the nearby Colorado River to irrigate a million acres on both sides of the border. The 'conquest' of the environment forms a central theme in the history of the valley, which supplies the organizing framework for the multi-faceted, multi-layered analysis Benny Andres provides in this study. Colonization in the valley began with the construction of a sixty-mile aqueduct from the Colorado River in California through Mexico. Initially, Mexico held authority over water delivery until settlers persuaded Congress to construct the All-American Canal. Control over land and water formed the basis of commercial agriculture and in turn enabled growers to use the state to procure inexpensive, plentiful immigrant workers. Andres analyzes and traces the bi-national competition over the Colorado River, the capitalistic transformation of nature for industrial agriculture, the creation of a racialized, hierarchical agricultural labor force, and the repression of social and labor dissenters. A complex synthesis of previous scholarship and new primary documentary research, this study will appeal to scholars and students across multiple fields of history - Western and borderlands history, social history, labor history, rural history, agricultural history and environmental history.
...MoreReview Douglas W. Dodd (2017) Review of "Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940". Environmental History (pp. 145-147).
Review Sean Parulian Harvey (2016) Review of "Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940". Agricultural History (pp. 265-266).
Review Nathan F. Sayre (2016) Review of "Power and Control in the Imperial Valley: Nature, Agribusiness, and Workers on the California Borderland, 1900-1940". Journal of American History (pp. 226-226).
Similar Citations
Book
Wolfe, Mikael;
(2017)
Watering the revolution: an environmental and technological history of agrarian reform in Mexico
(/isis/citation/CBB630915743/)
Book
Cristina Salinas;
(2018)
Managed Migrations: Growers, Farmworkers, and Border Enforcement in the Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB283180505/)
Article
Meyer, Carrie A.;
(2013)
The Farm Debut of the Gasoline Engine
(/isis/citation/CBB001320819/)
Book
David B. Danbom;
(2015)
Bridging the Distance: Common Issues of Rural West
(/isis/citation/CBB891405865/)
Book
Garcilazo, Jeffrey Marcos;
(2012)
Traqueros: Mexican Railroad Workers in the United States, 1870--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001550267/)
Book
David H. DeJong;
(2009)
Stealing the Gila: The Pima Agricultural Economy and Water Deprivation, 1848-1921
(/isis/citation/CBB161206534/)
Book
Brassley, Paul;
Segers, Yves;
Molle, Leen van;
(2012)
War, Agriculture and Food: Rural Europe from the 1930s to the 1950s
(/isis/citation/CBB001201976/)
Article
Sébastia, Brigitte;
(2011)
Revaloriser les millets en Inde: les produits biologiques et écologiques au bénéflce de l'environnement et de la santé
(/isis/citation/CBB001320888/)
Book
John Opie;
Char Miller;
Kenna Lang Archer;
(2018)
Ogallala: Water for a Dry Land
(/isis/citation/CBB938025675/)
Article
Wilson, Catharine Anne;
(2013)
A Manly Art: Plowing, Plowing Matches, and Rural Masculinity in Ontario, 1800--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001550536/)
Book
Patrick Dearen;
(2016)
Bitter waters: The struggles of the Pecos River
(/isis/citation/CBB122189904/)
Book
Michael J. Lansing;
(2015)
Insurgent Democracy: The Nonpartisan League in North American Politics
(/isis/citation/CBB453507115/)
Book
Cinotto, Simone;
(2012)
Soft Soil, Black Grapes: The Birth of Italian Winemaking in California
(/isis/citation/CBB001320946/)
Book
Colin Fisher;
(2015)
Urban Green: Nature, Recreation, and the Working Class in Industrial Chicago
(/isis/citation/CBB653755986/)
Chapter
Molina, Natalia;
(2014)
Borders, Laborers, and Racialized Medicalization: Mexican Immigration and U.S. Public Health Practices in the Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001553451/)
Book
Mario Jimenez Sifuentez;
(2016)
Of Forests and Fields: Mexican Labor in the Pacific Northwest
(/isis/citation/CBB044049827/)
Book
Heidi Tinsman;
(2014)
Buying into the Regime: Grapes and Consumption in Cold War Chile and the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB383615341/)
Book
Kumar, Deepak;
Damodaran, Vinita;
D'Souza, Rohan;
(2011)
The British Empire and the Natural World: Environmental Encounters in South Asia
(/isis/citation/CBB001201905/)
Book
Ann Folino White;
(2014)
Plowed Under: Food Policy Protests and Performance in New Deal America
(/isis/citation/CBB624497168/)
Article
O'Donnell, Ronan;
(2014)
Conflict, Agreement and Landscape Change: Methods of Enclosure of the Northern English Countryside
(/isis/citation/CBB001450347/)
Be the first to comment!