Overview

In the 1930s and 1940s, rural reformers in the United States and Mexico waged unprecedented campaigns to remake their countrysides in the name of agrarian justice and agricultural productivity. Agrarian Crossings tells the story of how these campaigns were conducted in dialogue with one another as reformers in each nation came to exchange models, plans, and strategies with their equivalents across the border.Dismantling the artificial boundaries that can divide American and Latin American history, Tore Olsson shows how the agrarian histories of both regions share far more than we realize. He traces the connections between the US South and the plantation zones of Mexico, places that suffered parallel problems of environmental decline, rural poverty, and gross inequities in land tenure. Bringing this tumultuous era vividly to life, he describes how Roosevelt's New Deal drew on Mexican revolutionary agrarianism to shape its program for the rural South. Olsson also looks at how the US South served as the domestic laboratory for the Rockefeller Foundation's ""green revolution"" in Mexico-which would become the most important Third World development campaign of the twentieth century-and how the Mexican government attempted to replicate the hydraulic development of the Tennessee Valley Authority after World War II.Rather than a comparative history, Agrarian Crossings is an innovative history of comparisons and the ways they affected policy, moved people, and reshaped the landscape.

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9780691210452

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Reviews

Winner of the Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award, Latin American Studies Association An engaging read that reveals the flaws in contemporary understandings of development . . . . A text with multidisciplinary reach that can benefit scholars and students across the social sciences. ---Kelsey Ryan-Simkins, Agriculture and Human Values Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award, Agricultural History Society [This] book is an excellent example of the challenging, but inevitable synthesis of history and geography that often accompanies the transnational search for meaning. Historical-political geographers and political ecologists, and those with regional interests in Mexico or the US South, the history of political agro-development, and general development studies should find great value in this book. ---Matthew C. LaFevor, Journal of Historical Geography Olsson's insightful and engaging history of transnational agrarian reform movements will spark new scholarship about the interactions between the rural poor and various agrarian bureaucrats. ---Catherine Nolan-Ferrell, American Historical Reviewi A detailed, smart, and engaging study that places Mexican and U.S. rural development during the twentieth century in dialogue with one another. . . . Specialists, students, and interested laypersons alike stand to learn much from this crucially important and timely book. ---Timothy Bowman, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Olsson's book should serve as a model for how transnational history is written. ---John J. Dwyer, Journal of American Ethnic History Engagingly and elegantly written, [Agrarian Crossings] furnishes a new interpretation of, and approach to, both the agrarian New Deal and Cardenismo-and more broadly, the history of US-Mexican relations. ---Mikael Wolfe, H-Net Reviews Winner of the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Olsson's book is clearly written, deeply researched, wholly original, and undoubtedly deserves a wide readership. ---John Weber, North Carolina Historical Review Co-Winner of the Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Book Prize, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Winner of the William M. LeoGrande Prize, American University's Center for Latin American & Latino Studies In shining a quintessential, organic light upon a truly hideous, current political stalemate of a situation, Tore C. Olsson herein brings farming history right up to date. . . . Rich and transnational. ---David Marx, David Marx Book reviews Agrarian Crossings is not only a crucial rethinking of the place of Mexico in some of the most iconic US agrarian projects of the twentieth century, but also a fascinating provocation for how scholars should understand rural histories beyond the methodological strait-jacket of the nation-state. . . . Brilliant. ---Christy Thornton, Journal of Peasant Studies

[This] book is an excellent example of the challenging, but inevitable synthesis of history and geography that often accompanies the transnational search for meaning. Historical-political geographers and political ecologists, and those with regional interests in Mexico or the US South, the history of political agro-development, and general development studies should find great value in this book. ---Matthew C. LaFevor, Journal of Historical Geography Winner of the 2018 Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Olsson's insightful and engaging history of transnational agrarian reform movements will spark new scholarship about the interactions between the rural poor and various agrarian bureaucrats. ---Catherine Nolan-Ferrell, American Historical Reviewi A detailed, smart, and engaging study that places Mexican and U.S. rural development during the twentieth century in dialogue with one another. . . . Specialists, students, and interested laypersons alike stand to learn much from this crucially important and timely book. ---Timothy Bowman, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Winner of the 2017 Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award, Agricultural History Society Olsson's book should serve as a model for how transnational history is written. ---John J. Dwyer, Journal of American Ethnic History Engagingly and elegantly written, [Agrarian Crossings] furnishes a new interpretation of, and approach to, both the agrarian New Deal and Cardenismo-and more broadly, the history of US-Mexican relations. ---Mikael Wolfe, H-Net Reviews Olsson's book is clearly written, deeply researched, wholly original, and undoubtedly deserves a wide readership. ---John Weber, North Carolina Historical Review Co-Winner of the Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Book Prize, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Winner of the 2019 Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award, Latin American Studies Association In shining a quintessential, organic light upon a truly hideous, current political stalemate of a situation, Tore C. Olsson herein brings farming history right up to date. . . . Rich and transnational. ---David Marx, David Marx Book reviews Agrarian Crossings is not only a crucial rethinking of the place of Mexico in some of the most iconic US agrarian projects of the twentieth century, but also a fascinating provocation for how scholars should understand rural histories beyond the methodological strait-jacket of the nation-state. . . . Brilliant. ---Christy Thornton, Journal of Peasant Studies Winner of the 2017 William M. LeoGrande Prize, American University's Center for Latin American & Latino Studies

Winner of the William M. LeoGrande Prize, American University's Center for Latin American & Latino Studies In shining a quintessential, organic light upon a truly hideous, current political stalemate of a situation, Tore C. Olsson herein brings farming history right up to date. . . . Rich and transnational. ---David Marx, David Marx Book reviews Agrarian Crossings is not only a crucial rethinking of the place of Mexico in some of the most iconic US agrarian projects of the twentieth century, but also a fascinating provocation for how scholars should understand rural histories beyond the methodological strait-jacket of the nation-state. . . . Brilliant. ---Christy Thornton, Journal of Peasant Studies Co-Winner of the Peter Dobkin Hall History of Philanthropy Book Prize, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) Olsson's book is clearly written, deeply researched, wholly original, and undoubtedly deserves a wide readership. ---John Weber, North Carolina Historical Review Winner of the Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize, Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Engagingly and elegantly written, [Agrarian Crossings] furnishes a new interpretation of, and approach to, both the agrarian New Deal and Cardenismo-and more broadly, the history of US-Mexican relations. ---Mikael Wolfe, H-Net Reviews Olsson's book should serve as a model for how transnational history is written. ---John J. Dwyer, Journal of American Ethnic History A detailed, smart, and engaging study that places Mexican and U.S. rural development during the twentieth century in dialogue with one another. . . . Specialists, students, and interested laypersons alike stand to learn much from this crucially important and timely book. ---Timothy Bowman, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Olsson's insightful and engaging history of transnational agrarian reform movements will spark new scholarship about the interactions between the rural poor and various agrarian bureaucrats. ---Catherine Nolan-Ferrell, American Historical Reviewi [This] book is an excellent example of the challenging, but inevitable synthesis of history and geography that often accompanies the transnational search for meaning. Historical-political geographers and political ecologists, and those with regional interests in Mexico or the US South, the history of political agro-development, and general development studies should find great value in this book. ---Matthew C. LaFevor, Journal of Historical Geography Winner of the Theodore Saloutos Memorial Award, Agricultural History Society An engaging read that reveals the flaws in contemporary understandings of development . . . . A text with multidisciplinary reach that can benefit scholars and students across the social sciences. ---Kelsey Ryan-Simkins, Agriculture and Human Values Winner of the Luciano Tomassini Latin American International Relations Book Award, Latin American Studies Association

Author Information

Tore C. Olsson is assistant professor of history at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

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