Vera S Candiani Dreaming of Dry Land | sku-33939816

Dreaming of Dry Land by Vera S Candiani is a hardcover title in Latin American History Books (sku-33939816). It examines the Desagüe de Huehuetoca, a long-running drainage project undertaken after the lakes around colonial Mexico City began overflowing, destroying wealth and alarming urban elites.

Hundreds of technicians, thousands of indigenous workers, and millions of pesos went into its canals, tunnels, dams, floodgates, and reservoirs. Candiani traces the project's effects on land, water, living things, and people.

Drawing on the histories of science, technology, the environment, society, and the Atlantic world, she argues that colonization was a class phenomenon on both sides of the Atlantic, with state-building and empire-building intertwined.