The Dread Plague and the Cow Killers: The Politics of Animal Disease in Mexico and the World (Cambridge Latin American Studies) - Softcover

Rath, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108948235 ISBN 13: 9781108948234

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2026

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Rath is Associate Professor of History at University College London. He is the author of Myths of Demilitarization in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1920-60 and numerous articles, chapters, and reviews on Mexico's political and social history.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1108948235
• ISBN 13: 9781108948234
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 266