The Metamorphosis of the Amazon
An Environmental History of Oil Extraction in Ecuador

Offers new perspectives on the history of oil extraction in the Ecuadorian Amazon through the experiences of oil workers.

Maximilian Fritz Feichtner (Author)

9781009343091, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 December 2023

254 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.8 cm, 0.498 kg

'… a provocative and engaging study of the RAE's metamorphosis that may open up the field to more nuanced historical understandings of environmental transformation.' Ernesto Capello, Hispanic American Historical Review

The Metamorphosis of the Amazon sheds new light on the complex history of the Ecuadorian rainforest, revealing how oil development and its social and ecological repercussions triggered its metamorphosis. When international oil giants such as Shell and Texaco started to dig for oil in remote rainforest locations, a process was born that eventually altered the fabric of the Amazon forever. Oil infrastructure paved way for a disastrous industrial and agricultural landscape polluted by the hazardous waste management of the oil industry. Adopting a unique approach, Maximilian Feichtner does not recount the established narrative of oil companies vs. suffering local communities, he instead centers the rainforest ecosystem itself – its rivers, animals, and climate conditions – and the often neglected actors of this history: the oilmen and their experiences as people affected by a pollution they perpetrated and witnessed. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

1. Introduction: the oil-induced metamorphosis
2. Hidden treasures: the Ecuadorean Amazon before oil
3. A resource environment: prospecting and the conceptual metamorphosis
4. Oily roads: infrastructure and the material metamorphosis
5. Ghost acres: waste management and the toxic metamorphosis
6. A tough life: oil workers and the social metamorphosis
7. The legal aftermath: an open-ended conclusion.

Subject Areas: History of the Americas [HBJK]