Diseased Relations: Epidemics, Public Health, and State-Building in Yucatán, Mexico, 1847-1924

This study examines the politics of postcolonial state-building through the lens of disease and public health policy in order to trace how indigenous groups on the periphery of power and geography helped shape the political practices and institutions of modern Mexico. Placing Yucatán at the center of an international labor force, global economics (due to the henequen boom), and a modernizing medical establishment, Heather McCrea incorporates the region into a larger discussion about socioeconomic change and the pervasive role that health care, or lack thereof, plays in human society.