Bio
In my work, I examine the intersection of social, political, environmental, and technological change in modern Mexico and Latin America by focusing on the history of agrarian reform, water control, hydraulic technology, drought, and climate change. I offer a wide range of undergraduate and graduate courses in Mexican, Latin American, environmental, and comparative and global history, on topics such as the history of water control, climate ethics, economic development, international relations, revolution and film (see course offerings below).
My first book, Watering the Revolution, recipient of the 2018 Conference on Latin American History's Elinor Melville Prize for Latin American Environmental History, transforms our understanding of Mexican agrarian reform, Latin America's most extensive and longest-lasting (1915-1992) through an environmental and technological history of water management in the emblematic Laguna region. Drawing on extensive archival research in Mexico and the United States, it shows how during the long Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) engineers’ distribution of the water paradoxically undermined land distribution. In so doing, it highlights the intrinsic tension engineers faced between the urgent need for water conservation and the imperative for development during the contentious modernization of the Laguna's existing flood irrigation method into one regulated by high dams, concrete-lined canals, and motorized groundwater pumps. This tension generally resolved in favor of development, which unintentionally diminished and contaminated the water supply while deepening existing rural social inequalities by dividing people into water haves and have-nots, regardless of their access to land. By uncovering the varied motivations behind the Mexican government’s decision to use invasive and damaging technologies despite knowing they were ecologically unsustainable, the book tells a cautionary tale of the long-term consequences of short-sighted development policies.
The research I completed for my first book led to my second book project tentatively entitled “Revolution in the Air: A Comparative Historical Climatology of the Mexican and Cuban Revolutions.” The book makes climate endogenous to the story of revolution. It contends that climatic events did not simply happen once, only to disappear in importance. Rather, revolutionaries and counterrevolutionaries interpreted climatic variability through a mixture of geopolitical, scientific, and religious knowledge and practices. These interpretations, in turn, shaped how revolutionary societies incorporated climatology into a broader state policy toward the environment.
Academic Appointments
-
Assistant Professor, History
Administrative Appointments
-
Assistant Professor of History, Stanford University (2012 - Present)
-
Mellon Visiting Assistant Professor of Environmental History, University of California, Los Angeles (2010 - 2012)
-
Visiting Fellow, Center for US-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego (2009 - 2010)
-
Visiting Fellow, Kellogg Institute for International Studies, University of Notre Dame (2009 - 2009)
-
Quinn Family Foundation Dissertation-Year Fellowship, University of Chicago Department of History (2006 - 2007)
-
Fulbright-Garda Robles Fellowship, Fulbright-Garda Robles Mexico (2005 - 2006)
-
Graduate Fellowship, University of Chicago (1998 - 2002)
Honors & Awards
-
Elinor K. Melville Book Prize for Latin American Environmental History, Conference on Latin American History (2018)
Boards, Advisory Committees, Professional Organizations
-
Organizer, International Water History Conference, Montpelier, France (2013 - 2013)
-
Organizer, The Future of Environmental History: What the Past Teaches us about the Future of the Environment," UCLA History Faculty Symposium (2011 - 2011)
-
Organizer, "Mexico's Other National Security Crisis: Food and Water Sustainability," Center for US-Mexican Studies, University of California-San Diego Workshop (2010 - 2010)
-
Article reviewer, Mexican Studies (2011 - 2013)
-
Book reviewer, Hispanic American Historical Review (2010 - 2010)
-
Book reviewer, Environment and History (2013 - 2013)
-
Revisions Contributor and Reviewer, Worldmark Encyclopedia of the Nations (2012 - 2012)
-
Article reviewer, Journal Mexican Studies (2012 - 2012)
-
Article Reviewer, Journal Mexican Studies (2013 - 2013)
-
Member, Historical Conversations Committee, History Department, Stanford University (2013 - 2014)
-
Member, Undergraduate Studies Curriculum Committee, History Department, Stanford University (2012 - 2013)
-
Selection Committee Member, Kellogg Institute, University of Notre Dame (2009 - 2009)
-
Member, American Historical Association
-
Member, The Conference on Latin American History
-
Member, Latin American Studies Association
-
Member, American Society for Environmental History
-
Member, Climate History Network
Program Affiliations
-
Center for East Asian Studies
-
Center for Latin American Studies
Professional Education
-
B.A., Columbia University, East Asian Studies (1995)
-
M.A, The University of Chicago, International History (major field East Asia, minor field Middle East) (1999)
-
Ph.D., The University of Chicago, Latin American History (2009)
2019-20 Courses
- Film and History of Latin American Revolutions and Counterrevolutions
HISTORY 178, HISTORY 78 (Win) - Graduate Colloquium: Explorations in Latin American History and Historiography
HISTORY 371, ILAC 371 (Aut) - Human Society and Environmental Change
EARTHSYS 112, EARTHSYS 212, ESS 112, HISTORY 103D (Aut) - The Historical Ecology of Latin America
HISTORY 278B, HISTORY 378 (Win) -
Independent Studies (10)
- Curricular Practical Training
HISTORY 299F (Sum) - Directed Reading in Environment and Resources
ENVRES 398 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Directed Research in Environment and Resources
ENVRES 399 (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Directed Reading
HISTORY 399W (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum) - Graduate Research
HISTORY 499X (Aut, Win) - Senior Research I
HISTORY 299A (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research II
HISTORY 299B (Aut, Win, Spr) - Senior Research III
HISTORY 299C (Win, Spr) - Senior Thesis
INTNLREL 198 (Aut, Win, Spr) - Undergraduate Directed Research and Writing
HISTORY 299S (Aut, Win, Spr, Sum)
- Curricular Practical Training
-
Prior Year Courses
2018-19 Courses
- Film and History of Latin American Revolutions and Counterrevolutions
HISTORY 178, HISTORY 78 (Spr) - Graduate Colloquium: Explorations in Latin American History and Historiography
HISTORY 371, ILAC 371 (Win) - The Ethical Challenges of Climate Change
HISTORY 179C, HISTORY 79C (Win) - The Historical Ecology of Latin America
HISTORY 378 (Spr)
2016-17 Courses
- Film and History of Latin American Revolutions and Counterrevolutions
HISTORY 178, HISTORY 78 (Spr) - Graduate Colloquium: Explorations in Latin American History and Historiography
HISTORY 371 (Aut) - Human Society and Environmental Change
EARTHSYS 112, ESS 112, HISTORY 103D (Aut) - Water in World History
HISTORY 203J, HISTORY 303J (Spr)
- Film and History of Latin American Revolutions and Counterrevolutions
Stanford Advisees
-
Doctoral Dissertation Reader (AC)
Leonardo Brandao Barleta, Dean Chahim, Allison Kendra, Matthew Nestler -
Orals Evaluator
Leonardo Brandao Barleta, Paul Nauert
All Publications
-
The Climate of Conflict: Politico-environmental Press Coverage and the Eruption of the Mexican Revolution, 1907-1911
HAHR-HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
2019; 99 (3): 467–99
View details for DOI 10.1215/00182168-7573518
View details for Web of Science ID 000477862700003
-
Considering the Alternatives: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Agriculture, Water, and Migration in Mexico under State Developmentalism and Neoliberalism
MEXICAN STUDIES-ESTUDIOS MEXICANOS
2013; 29 (1): 1-2
View details for DOI 10.1525/msem.2013.29.1.1
View details for Web of Science ID 000319854200001
- The Sociolegal Redesignation of Ejido Land Use, 1856-1912 Mexico in Transition: New perspectives on Mexican Agrarian History, Nineteenth and Twentieth Centurie edited by Butler, M., Escobar-Ohlmstede, A. Mexico City and Austin, Texas: University of Texas-Austin and Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social-Guadalajara. 2013: 291–318
- Review of "A Land Between Waters: Environmental Histories of Modern Mexico" Environment and History 2013
-
The Historical Dynamics of Mexico's Groundwater Crisis in La Laguna: Knowledge, Resources, and Profit, 1930s-1960s
MEXICAN STUDIES-ESTUDIOS MEXICANOS
2013; 29 (1): 3-?
View details for DOI 10.1525/msem.2013.29.1.3
View details for Web of Science ID 000319854200002
-
Land Reform in Puerto Rico: Modernizing the Colonial State, 1941-1969 (Book Review)
HAHR-HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
2011; 91 (3): 554-555
View details for DOI 10.1215/00182168-1300552
View details for Web of Science ID 000293274700021
-
Bringing the Revolution to the Dam Site: How Technology, Labor, and Nature Converged in the Microcosm of a Northern Mexican Company Town, 1936-1946
JOURNAL OF THE SOUTHWEST
2011; 53 (1): 1-31
View details for Web of Science ID 000291760000001
- Review of "Agua, Poder Urbano, y Metabolismo Social" Hispanic American Historical Review 2011; August
- Mining Water for the Revolution: Marte R. Gomez and the Business of Agrarian Reform in 'La Laguna, Mexico' The Kellogg Institute Working Papers University of Notre Dame. 2010
- Conflicto por un cambio de regimen de aguas en La Laguna: la 'construccion social' de la primera gran presa en el rio Nazas, 1900-1936 Buenaval Journal of the Universidad Iberoamericcma-Laguna 2006: 1-37