Description
Book SynopsisBringing much-needed historical perspective to contemporary debates about the impacts of ranching in the tropics, this book explores how cattle raising transformed a remote region of Brazil economically, socially, and environmentally.
Trade ReviewA welcome, and important, contribution…one of the best studies of the historic development of ranching in the American tropics. * Journal of Latin American Studies *
Wilcox reveals the complex environmental, economic, and social history of one of the country's most important agricultural industries...
Cattle in the Backlands provides a necessary, and previously under explored, history of a regional industry [and] is valuable reading for scholars of agro-industrial development within Brazil and beyond. * Luso-Brazilian Review *
One of the most thoroughly researched histories of cattle ranching in Latin America written to date...this book is a welcome and much-needed addition to existing scholarship on cattle ranching in the Americas and will be of broader interest to agricultural, environmental, and social historians interested in understanding historical relationships between people, animals, and the land. * Hispanic American Historical Review *
A significant achievement...
Cattle in the Backlands helps us think more deeply about the importance of animals to peripheral economic development and about conditions in Brazil's many 'backlands' that faced similar struggles against distance, land-tenure insecurity, lack of credit, and physical environment. * Journal of Latin American Geography *
Table of Contents
- Selected Timeline for Cattle Ranching in Mato Grosso, 1580s–1980
- Maps
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction. The Paradox of Tropical Ranching
- Chapter 1. Mirror of the Land: Regional Geography and Environmental Imperatives
- Chapter 2. Establishing Roots: The Ranching Economy to 1914
- Chapter 3. A Boom of Sorts: The Ranching Economy, 1914–1950
- Chapter 4. Land Access: Opportunities and Obstacles
- Chapter 5. Cowboys, Hands, and Native Peoples: Labor Relations
- Chapter 6. The Dynamics of the Mundane: Everyday Ranching
- Chapter 7. National Breeds and Hindu Idols
- Conclusion. Transformation and Continuity
- Notes
- Glossary
- Index
