Climate and Society in Colonial Mexico

Mexico is well known for its vulnerability to a variety of disasters, ranging from droughts and floods to devastating epidemics. Using extensive archival resources in Mexico and Spain, environmental historian Endfield (Univ. of Nottingham) focuses on three regions with their diverse environments--the Rio Conchos Basin in the state of Chihuahua, Guanajuato and the Chichimec territory, and the Valley of Oaxaca--to compare and contrast the impact of climate crises on the economic and social-political systems of the agrarian Indian and Spanish societies of colonial Mexico from 1521 to 1820. The author discusses climate disasters of the late pre-Hispanic period, as well as the prehistory of the three study regions. Repeated climate events resulted in societal disruption, demographic changes, and conflict. Endfield shows how the societies in these three regions coped with and adapted to the risks and hazards of extreme weather over the centuries. This impressive archival study on Mexico provides a historical perspective on environmental change and the cultural response in such detail and depth that it will be used by many disciplines as global warming produces more frequent and devastating climate events in Mesoamerica and elsewhere. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. -- J. B. Richardson III, University of Pittsburgh (Choice, February 2009)