HISTORY
May ’68
New Approaches, New Perspectives
donald reid & daniel sherman , editors
a special issue of FRENCH HISTORICAL STUDIES
L AT I N A M E R I C A N S T U D I E S
A City on a Lake
Urban Political Ecology and the Growth of Mexico City mat thew vitz
This issue presents new directions
In A City on a Lake Matthew
in the study of the civil unrest in
Vitz tracks the environmental
France during May 1968 on its
and political history of Mexico
fiftieth anniversary. Authors from
City and explains its transforma‑
France and the United States
tion from a forested, water-rich
emphasize the nature and experi‑
environment into a smog-infested
ence of the political upheaval in
megacity plagued by environ‑
May 1968, the long-term cultural
mental problems and social
impacts of events in Paris, and the
inequality. Vitz shows how Mexico
ways in which these events figure
City’s unequal urbanization and environmental decline stemmed
into a global context. Contributors offer new ways of understanding and interpreting the discord by
Rodrigo Moya, Dust Storm, Mexico City, 1958. Courtesy of the Archivo Fotográfico Rodrigo Moya.
from numerous scientific and social disputes over water policy,
focusing on the emotional and cultural resonance of the events of
housing, forestry, and sanitary engineering. From the prerevolution‑
May 1968 in activism and popular culture. Other essays explore
ary efforts to create a hygienic city supportive of capitalist growth,
the relation of student activism in former French colonies to events
through revolutionary demands for a more democratic distribution
in France, place the events of May 1968 in a global context by
of resources, to the mid-twentieth-century emergence of a techno‑
considering diplomatic and radical networks between Europe and
cratic bureaucracy that served the interests of urban elites, Mexico
the United States, and examine the cultural relationship between
City’s environmental history helps us better understand how urban
France and Germany.
power has been exercised, reproduced, and challenged throughout
Contributors Ludivine Bantigny, Françoise Blum, Tony Côme, Boris Gobille, Bethany Keenan, Salar Mohandesi, Donald Reid, Sandrine Sanos, Daniel Sherman
Donald Reid is Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Daniel Sherman is Lineberger Distinguished Professor of Art History and History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Latin America. Matthew Vitz is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego. R ADICAL PERSPECTIV ES A RADICAL HISTORY REVIEW BOOK SERIES
A series edited by Daniel Walkowitz and Barbara Weinstein
“Tracing the relationship of social and ecological change during Mexico City’s crucial stage of development in the early twentieth century, A City on a Lake is the most compelling environmental history of modern Mexico City available.”— CHRISTOPHER R. BOYER , author of Political Landscapes: Forests, Conservation, and Community in Mexico
FRENCH HISTORY
L AT I N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y/ E N V I R O N M E N TA L S T U D I E S
April 200 pages Vol. 4, no. 2
April 336 pages, 30 illustrations
paper, 978‑1‑4780‑0050‑1, $14.00/£11.99
paper, 978‑0‑8223‑7040‑6, $26.95/£21.99 cloth, 978‑0‑8223‑7029‑1, $99.95/£83.00 Available as an e‑book
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