The Dread Plague and the Cow Killers
The Politics of Animal Disease in Mexico and the World

The story of how a massive outbreak of animal disease transformed Mexican politics, society, science, and the wider world.

Thomas Rath (Author)

9781108844482, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 August 2022

264 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.9 cm, 0.52 kg

'Rath's story of cows and how to kill them is an extraordinary work. Told with verve, intelligence and a wry wit, it is an original meeting of political, environmental and new US imperial history. It also lays out - with clarity and style - the emergence of Mexico's one-party state. One of the two or three most important books on mid-century Mexico.' Benjamin T. Smith, author of The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade

Between 1947 and 1954, the Mexican and US governments waged a massive campaign against a devastating livestock plague, aftosa or foot-and-mouth disease. Absorbing over half of US economic aid to Latin America and involving thousands of veterinarians and ranchers from both countries, battalions of Mexican troops, and scientists from Europe and the Americas, the campaign against aftosa was unprecedented in size. Despite daunting obstacles and entrenched opposition, it successfully eradicated the virus in Mexico, and reshaped policies, institutions, and knowledge around the world. Using untapped sources from local, national, and international archives, Thomas Rath provides a comprehensive history of this campaign, the forces that shaped it – from presidents to peasants, scientists to journalists, pistoleros to priests, mountains to mules – and the complicated legacy it left. More broadly, it uses the campaign to explore the formation of the Mexican state, changing ideas of development and security, and the history of human–animal relations.

Introduction
1. Animals and government in Mexico
2. Sharing sovereignty in a technical commission
3. Spiking the sanitary rifle: Argument and opposition
4. Soldiers, syringes, surveys, and secrets: Encountering resistance
5. Making a livestock state
6. Mexico and the Cold War on animal disease
Afterword.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]