In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Desastre económico o debilidad federal en los primeros gobiernos postrevolucionarios
  • William Schell Jr.
Desastre económico o debilidad federal en los primeros gobiernos postrevolucionarios. Edited by Rocío Castañeda González, Antonio Escobar Ohmstede, and Jorge A. Andrade Galindo. Mexico: Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social et. al., 2005. Pp. 250. Notes.

This book is a compilation of documents from the Archivo Historico del Agua with commentary assembled by the editors to address a topic they feel has been neglected, namely the damage done to hacienda, ranch, and industrial hydraulic infrastructure by various armed movements from 1917-1929. The documents were selected and arranged in forty-two sets by three criteria: those reporting damage done by revolutionary and insurrectional violence and requesting immunity from water fees, those complaining about obstacles to rebuilding, and those requesting military assistance. The thrust of the project is framed in the book's title as an unfortunate either/or question: Did the Mexican government's failure to implement rational water management policies result from economic disaster and destruction arising from revolutionary violence, or from federal weakness? They conclude the latter.

The documents reveal a tug-of-war between the federal government, which sought to raise revenues for "new and improved hydraulic infrastructure" (p. 13) by water use fees imposed by the Ley de Aguas de 1917 (included as an appendix), and water users, who often exaggerated damages done their facilities to avoid paying water use fees of five centavos per 1000 cubic meters for individual users and ten centavos for commercial irrigation. Producers of hydroelectric were charged on a sliding scale by power generated. The exaggerated damage reports contributed to the international perception of unsettled conditions in Mexico thus undercutting the government's plan to finance improvements in irrigation and hydroelectric power by making capital more costly. Further contributing to governmental paralysis, say the editors, were "constant changes in the presidency" (p. 13), an odd observation given that the period covered starts at the end of the Age of Violence and runs through Plutarco Calles and his Maximato. Disorder, yes, but not a revolving door presidency.

Because the editors chose only documents reporting damage, the collection focuses on Central Mexico where fighting was most intense. But the editors approach the claims made in these reports with critical reserve, asking just how much damage the revolutionaries actually did to Mexico's hydraulic infrastructure, as opposed to what they were accused of doing. In one example they contrast the report by the manager of a Luis García Pimentel hacienda, that Zapatistas dynamited its irrigation works, with the findings of Alicia Hernández Chávez that Zapatista communities sought to protect irrigation works for their own use from attacks by their enemies. If war damage was concentrated in the country's center and if many reports exaggerated that damage, then, ask the editors rhetorically, was Mexico in economic crisis from 1910-1930? No, they conclude, citing John Womack, Sandra Kuntz Ficker, and Stephen Haber who report economic growth on [End Page 148] the periphery particularly after 1915 and a general recovery that lasted until 1926 when a combination of falling exports and evaporating investor confidence produced an economic crisis. Nonetheless, even during the period of economic growth, Mexico did not increase its hydroelectric power production over Porifiran levels for twenty years, in part due to stagnate internal markets and partly because manufacturers were unable to obtain the necessary machinery. Incremental improvements made in the 1917 law did little to improve the situation. Not until 1926 with the creation of la Comisión Nacional de Irrigación did the government intervene decisively to resolve the conflicts between users in favor of the revolutionary state.

In conclusion, this book of documents may be of value to those interested in the post-revolutionary politics of water management. Its main shortcomings are redundancy in the Introduction and the lack of an index which, given the nature of the collection, is a major flaw. The editors are to be commended, however, for warning of dangers of accepting at face value reports of property damage done by revolutionary forces and for encouraging deeper analysis of...

pdf

Share