READING GUIDE: From Cárdenas to the Dictablanda

A. Questions from the lecture:

1. Explain several reforms (3) that took place under Cárdenas’ government and their
impact.

2. What kind of relationship did Cárdenas want to reshape and why?

B. Try to answer this main question using arguments and information from
all the essential readings. (Do the background reading to learn about the
historiographical context: environmental history in Latin America):
What can environmental history approaches tell us about
Cardenismo?

C. Seminar Reading: Boyer & Wakild, “Social landscaping in the forests of

Mexico…”

1. Explain in what ways was Cardenista’s social-landscaping model different than the
USA and Soviet Union’s productivist models. What are the reasons the authors give
for these differences? What did they share with other “high modernist” states?

2. How was the ideal of social progress related to Cárdenas’ social-landscaping project?
According to Cardenistas who would benefit from this project? Who was involved in
this project?

3. Explain the “garden” metaphor and what does it tell us about Cardenista’s relationship
to the environment.

4. What is an ejido? What was its purpose? How is the creation of the ejido connected to
the broader social-landscaping vision? How does this vision look at natural resources?

5. What continuities and changes can we see from Cárdenas’ policies regarding roads,
irrigation, fisheries, forestry and the Banco Agrícola in contrast with previous
administrations?

6. What can we learn about Cardenismo government from its social-landscaping

process? What is the importance of social places?
D. Seminar Reading: “Wolfe, Watering the Revolution…” (chapter 3)
 1. For what reasons has Cárdenas presidency been characterised as a
postrevolutionary presidency that fulfilled the promises of the Mexican
Revolution two decades earlier?

2. Which were the main groups fighting in the Laguna? What do these fights tell us
about the Cardenista period? How were “técnicos” perceived by local groups?

3. Explain how the distribution of water involved different political groups within
the government.

4. Why is it important to look at water distribution to understand the creation of the

ejidos and its limitations? In what ways were the distribution of land and water
deeply related and what were the political implications of the first one?

E. Seminar Reading: Santiago “Class and nature in the Oil industry…”

1. How class influenced narratives about surrounding nature? What can we learn about
the time we are studying by looking at different groups’ relation to the environment?

2. According to the author the oilmen: “enforced a class regime that determined relations
not only among humans but also between human beings and the nature”. What
explanations does the author give to state this? Explain by taking into account
arguments throughout the article.

3. What is according to the author “environmental wage”? What does that tell us about
class and the environment?

4. Why do researchers need to pay more attention to Mexican oil workers to understand
better the oil nationalization? How did Mexican oil workers highlight nature?

F. Primary Sources Readings

Choose at least two primary sources and explain how would you use them to
answer the main question: What can environmental history
approaches tell us about Cardenismo?