By considering three case study regions in Mexico during the Colonial era, Climate and Society in Colonial Mexico: A Study in Vulnerability examines the complex interrelationship between climate and society and its contemporary implications.

• Provides unique insights on climate and society by capitalizing on Mexico’s rich colonial archives
• Offers a unique approach by combining geographical and historic perspectives in order to comprehend contemporary concerns over climate change
• Considers three case study regions in Mexico with very different cultural, economic, and environmental characteristics

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Features

• Provides unique insights on climate and society by capitalizing on Mexico’s rich colonial archives
• Offers a unique approach by combining geographical and historic perspectives in order to comprehend contemporary concerns over climate change
• Considers three case study regions in Mexico with very different cultural, economic, and environmental characteristics
• Offers valuable insights into how different societies articulate knowledge about climate and the environment and how they respond to climatic variability

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Contents

List of Tables, Figures and Illustrations
Series Editors’ Preface
Acknowledgments
1. A Vulnerable Society
Introduction
Changing Vulnerabilities
Climate Change and the 'Double Sided' Structure of Vulnerability
Exploring Climate and Society in Mexico
Climate History and Vulnerability in Mexico
Case Studies and Approach
2. Climate, Culture and Conquest: North, South and Central Mexico in the Pre-European and Contact Period
Environmental Marginality and Society in the Conchos Basin, Chihuahua
Guanajuato and the Chichimec Territory
Power and Political Growth in the Central Valley of Oaxaca
3. Exploring the Anatomy of Vulnerability in Colonial Mexico
Introduction
The Tools of Conquest and Colonisation
The Emergence of Regional Colonial Political Economies
Climate Variability and Vulnerability in Colonial Mexico: a Preview
4. Responding to Crisis: Vulnerability and Adaptive Capacity in Colonial Mexico
Introduction
Moral Economic and Institutional Responses to Climate and Crisis in Colonial Mexico
Speculation and Scarcity: Capitalising on Climate Knowledge
Trade in Grains: Providing for the ‘Engines’ of the Colonial Political Economy
Tribute, Food Aid and the Supernatural: Appealing to a Common Sense of Loss
'Compadrazgo', Community Engagement and Public Works
'Most Sensitive and Saddening Events': Flood Risk and Social Capital Response in Colonial Guanajuato
'Great Floods' 'and 'Strong Winds': Damaging Events, Response and ‘Non-Adaptation’ in Colonial Oaxaca
Responding strategically: climate, consciousness and experimentation
5. Negotiating and Litigating Water in Colonial Mexico
Introduction
Water and Local 'everyday conflicts' in the Country and City
Regional Resistance: Drought, Disease and Rebellion in Northern Mexico
Vulnerability, Riots and Rebellions: Rare Events or ‘Tipping Points’?
6. Illusory Prosperity: Economic Growth and Subsistence Crisis in the Disastrous Eighteenth Century
Introduction
Decline and Depression in Seventeenth-century Mexico
Economic Boom and Bust: Absolutism and Globalisation in Late Colonial Mexico
'A Time of Calamity': a Synthesis of Climate and Crises in Late Colonial Mexico
From Crisis to Insurrection: Vulnerability and Popular Unrest in the Early Nineteenth Century
7. Regional, National and Global Dimensions of Vulnerability and Crisis in Colonial Mexico
Introduction
Prolonged Drought and the Conditions of Crisis in Late Colonial Chihuahua
Drought Risk and the Social Construction of Flooding in the Bajío
Resilience and the Rare Event: Climate, Society and Human Choice in the Indigenous South
Crises in Context and Historical 'Double Exposure'
Closing Comments
Bibliography
Index