Stuart McCook
University of Guelph, History, Faculty Member
- Agricultural History, Coffee, Latin American Environmental History, International Development, Environmental History, History of Science, and 27 moreHistory Of Disease, Food History, Disaster Studies, History, História Ambiental-Eco-História / Environmental History, Cocoa and chocolate, Cacao, Plant Pathology, Latin American History, Brazil, Global History, Venezuela, Commodity Chains, History of Agriculture, History of Commodities in a Global Perspective, Botanic Gardens, Tropical Botany, Costa Rica, Coffee Rust, Hemileia vastatrix, Crop Diseases, Roya Del Café, Coffee History, Bananas, Earthquakes, World History, and Fair Tradeedit
The global coffee industry, which fuels the livelihoods of farmers, entrepreneurs, and consumers around the world, rests on fragile ecological foundations. In Coffee Is Not Forever, Stuart McCook explores the transnational story of this... more
The global coffee industry, which fuels the livelihoods of farmers, entrepreneurs, and consumers around the world, rests on fragile ecological foundations. In Coffee Is Not Forever, Stuart McCook explores the transnational story of this essential crop through a history of one of its most devastating diseases, the coffee leaf rust. He deftly synthesizes agricultural, social, and economic histories with plant genetics and plant pathology to investigate the increasing interdependence of the world’s coffee-producing zones. In the process, he illuminates the progress and prognosis of the challenges—especially climate change—that pose an existential threat to a crop that global consumers often take for granted. And finally, in putting a tropical plant disease at the forefront, he has crafted the first truly global environmental history of coffee, pushing its study and the discipline in bold new directions.
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"The process of nation-building in Latin America transformed the relations between the state, the economy, and nature. Between 1760 and 1940, the economies of most countries in the Spanish Caribbean came to depend heavily on the export of... more
"The process of nation-building in Latin America transformed the relations between the state, the economy, and nature. Between 1760 and 1940, the economies of most countries in the Spanish Caribbean came to depend heavily on the export of plant products, such as coffee, tobacco, and sugar. After the mid-nineteenth century, this model of export-led economic growth also became a central tenet of liberal projects of nation-building. As international competition grew and commodity prices fell over this period, Latin American growers strove to remain competitive by increasing agricultural production. By the turn of the twentieth century, their pursuit of export-led growth had generated severe environmental problems, including soil exhaustion, erosion, and epidemic outbreaks of crop diseases and pests.
This book traces the history of the intersections between nature, economy, and nation in the Spanish Caribbean through a history of the agricultural and botanical sciences. Growers and governments in Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Colombia, and Costa Rica turned to scientists to help them establish practical and ideological control over nature. They hoped to use science to alleviate the pressing environmental and economic stresses, without having to give up their commitment to export-led growth. Starting from an overview of the relationship among science, nature, and development throughout the export boom of 1760 to 1930, Stuart McCook examines such topics as the relationship between scientific plant surveys and nation-building, the development of a "creole science" to address the problems of tropical agriculture, the ecological rationalization of the sugar industry, and the growth of technocratic ideologies of science and progress. He concludes with a look at how the Great Depression of the 1930s changed the paradigms of economic and political development and the role of science and nature in these paradigms."
This book traces the history of the intersections between nature, economy, and nation in the Spanish Caribbean through a history of the agricultural and botanical sciences. Growers and governments in Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Colombia, and Costa Rica turned to scientists to help them establish practical and ideological control over nature. They hoped to use science to alleviate the pressing environmental and economic stresses, without having to give up their commitment to export-led growth. Starting from an overview of the relationship among science, nature, and development throughout the export boom of 1760 to 1930, Stuart McCook examines such topics as the relationship between scientific plant surveys and nation-building, the development of a "creole science" to address the problems of tropical agriculture, the ecological rationalization of the sugar industry, and the growth of technocratic ideologies of science and progress. He concludes with a look at how the Great Depression of the 1930s changed the paradigms of economic and political development and the role of science and nature in these paradigms."
During the Cold War, coffee became a strategically important crop in the global contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. The economies of many US allies in Latin America depended upon coffee. In the Cold War context, then,... more
During the Cold War, coffee became a strategically important crop in the global contest between the United States and the Soviet Union. The economies of many US allies in Latin America depended upon coffee. In the Cold War context, then, the coffee leaf rust (Hemileia vastatrix) became a geopolitical problem. Coffee experts in Latin America, which produced most of the world's coffee, began to prepare for an outbreak. In the 1950s, they built a global network of coffee experts. This network was sustained by US-led Cold War programs that promoted technical collaboration across the Global South, such as Harry Truman's Point Four programs. We explore the network's growth and evolution through one of its central figures, the American plant pathologist Frederick L. Wellman. This network has survived the end of the Cold War and evolved to reflect the new geopolitical context.
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Coffee has played complex and diverse roles in shaping livelihoods and landscapes in Latin America. This tropical understory tree has been profitably cultivated on large estates, on peasant smallholdings, and at many scales in between.... more
Coffee has played complex and diverse roles in shaping livelihoods and landscapes in Latin America. This tropical understory tree has been profitably cultivated on large estates, on peasant smallholdings, and at many scales in between. Coffee exports have fueled the economies of many parts of Latin America. At first, coffee farmers cleared and burned tropical forests to make way for their farms and increase production. Early farms benefited from the humus accumulated over centuries. In Brazil, farmers treated these tropical soils as nonrenewable resources and abandoned their farms once the soils were exhausted. In smaller coffee farms along the Cordillera—from Peru up to Mexico—coffee farming was not quite as wasteful of forests and soils. In the mid-20th century, scientific innovation in coffee farming became more widespread, especially in established coffee zones that were struggling with decreasing soil fertility, increasing soil erosion, and new diseases and pests. In the 1970s, national and international organizations promoted large-scale programs to “renovate” coffee production. These programs sought to dramatically increase productivity on coffee farms by eliminating shade, cultivating high-yielding coffee cultivars, and using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Renovation brought tremendous gains in productivity over the short term, but at the cost of added economic and environmental vulnerability over the longer term. Since the end of the International Coffee Agreement in 1989, the global coffee market has become much more volatile. New coffee pioneer fronts are opening up in Brazil, Peru, and Honduras, while elsewhere coffee production is shrinking. NGOs and coffee farmers have promoted new forms of coffee production, especially Fair Trade and certified organic coffee. Still, most coffee farms in Latin America remain “conventional” farms, using a hybrid of modern and traditional tools. Economic and environmental sustainability remain elusive goals for many coffee farmers, and the threat is likely to increase as they grapple with the effects of climate change.
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Since 2008, there has been a cluster of outbreaks of the coffee rust (Hemileia vastatrix) across the coffee-growing regions of the Americas, which have been collectively described as the Big Rust. These outbreaks have caused significant... more
Since 2008, there has been a cluster of outbreaks of the coffee rust (Hemileia vastatrix) across the coffee-growing regions of the Americas, which have been collectively described as the Big Rust. These outbreaks have caused significant hardship to coffee producers and laborers. This essay situates the Big Rust in a broader historical context. Over the past two centuries, coffee farmers have had to deal with the “curse of the Red Queen”—the need to constantly innovate in the face of an increasing range of threats, which includes the rust. Over the 20th century, particularly after World War II, national governments and international organizations developed a network of national, regional, and international coffee research institutions. These public institutions played a vital role in helping coffee farmers manage the rust. Coffee farmers have pursued four major strategies for managing the rust: bioprospecting for resistant coffee plants, breeding resistant coffee plants, chemical control, and agroecological control. Currently, the main challenge for researchers is to develop rust control strategies that are both ecologically and economically viable for coffee farmers, in the context of a volatile, deregulated coffee industry and the emergent challenges of climate change.
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The “global turn” in the history of science offers new ways to think about how to do national and regional histories of science, in this case the history of science in Latin America. For example, it questions structuralist and... more
The “global turn” in the history of science offers new ways to think about how to do national and regional histories of science, in this case the history of science in Latin America. For example, it questions structuralist and diffusionist models of the spread of science and shows the often active role that people in Latin America (and the rest of the Global South) played in the construction of “universal” scientific knowledge. It suggests that even national or regional histories of science must be situated in a global context; all too often, such histories have treated global processes as a distant backdrop. At the same time, historians need to pay constant attention to the role of power in the construction of scientific knowledge. Finally, this essay highlights a methodological tool for writing globally inflected histories of science: the method of “following.”
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The landscapes of the Greater Caribbean have been undergoing a process of ecological globalization since the arrival of European explorers and settlers in the late fifteenth century. The character of this ecological globalization has... more
The landscapes of the Greater Caribbean have been undergoing a process of ecological globalization since the arrival of European explorers and settlers in the late fifteenth century. The character of this ecological globalization has changed over time. Models of commodity-led economic development drove, directly or indirectly, the neo-Columbian exchanges of the long nineteenth century (roughly 1720-1930). The neo-Columbian exchanges differed from the Columbian exchanges of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in several key ways: They were increasingly mediated by imperial and transnational scientific institutions. The geographical scope of the exchanges grew, and the Greater Caribbean saw many new direct introductions of people, plants, and animals from Asia and the Pacific, as well as from the eastern part of the Atlantic World. A parallel movement of pathogens from Asia and the Pacific also introduced new epidemic diseases—especially crop diseases—to the Greater Caribbean. The neo-Columbian exchange drove the region's dramatic expansion in agricultural production, but this constructed abundance came at the expense of ecological impoverishment and fragility.
Resumen:
El medio ambiente en el Caribe ha experimentado un proceso creciente de globalización desde la llegada de los exploradores y colonos europeos a finales del siglo XV. El carácter de esta globalizacóin ecológica ha ido cambiando a lo largo del tiempo. Los intercambios que se produjeron durante lo que se puede llamar el largo siglo XIX (aproximadamente 1720–1930) fueron consecuencia directa o indirecta de un modelo de desarrollo económico basado en determinados bienes y productos. Dichos intercambios, denominados en el artóículo "The Neo-Columbian Exchange", se diferencian de los que ocurrieron en el siglo XVI y XVII, conocidos en inglés por "the Columbian Exchange", en aspectos claves. Por un lado, estuvieron cada vez más mediados por instituciones cientí: cas de carácter imperial y trasnacional. Por otro, el ámbito geográfico en el que se llevaron a cabo dichos intercambios creció considerablemente y el Caribe asistió a la introducción directa de nuevas poblaciones, plantas y animales provenientes de Asia y el Pacífico así como de la parte oriental del mundo atlántico. Todo ello fue acompañado por un movimiento paralelo de patógenos provenientes de las regiones mencionadas que introdujeron nuevas enfermedades, principalmente en las cosechas. Dichos intercambios constituyeron agentes fundamentales en la dramática expansión de producción agrícola que experimentó la región, pero la abundancia se produjo a costa de una mayor fragilidad y empobrecimiento ecológico.
Resumen:
El medio ambiente en el Caribe ha experimentado un proceso creciente de globalización desde la llegada de los exploradores y colonos europeos a finales del siglo XV. El carácter de esta globalizacóin ecológica ha ido cambiando a lo largo del tiempo. Los intercambios que se produjeron durante lo que se puede llamar el largo siglo XIX (aproximadamente 1720–1930) fueron consecuencia directa o indirecta de un modelo de desarrollo económico basado en determinados bienes y productos. Dichos intercambios, denominados en el artóículo "The Neo-Columbian Exchange", se diferencian de los que ocurrieron en el siglo XVI y XVII, conocidos en inglés por "the Columbian Exchange", en aspectos claves. Por un lado, estuvieron cada vez más mediados por instituciones cientí: cas de carácter imperial y trasnacional. Por otro, el ámbito geográfico en el que se llevaron a cabo dichos intercambios creció considerablemente y el Caribe asistió a la introducción directa de nuevas poblaciones, plantas y animales provenientes de Asia y el Pacífico así como de la parte oriental del mundo atlántico. Todo ello fue acompañado por un movimiento paralelo de patógenos provenientes de las regiones mencionadas que introdujeron nuevas enfermedades, principalmente en las cosechas. Dichos intercambios constituyeron agentes fundamentales en la dramática expansión de producción agrícola que experimentó la región, pero la abundancia se produjo a costa de una mayor fragilidad y empobrecimiento ecológico.
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The history of tropical crops in the second half of the twentieth century is, in large part, a history of innovation. An analysis of this history of innovation allows us to glimpse the environmental history of these crops. Much of the... more
The history of tropical crops in the second half of the twentieth century is, in large part, a history of innovation. An analysis of this history of innovation allows us to glimpse the environmental history of these crops. Much of the innovation in this period was done to counter an unprecedented wave of crop diseases and pests. Recovering the history of these diseases, in turn, allows us to understand the increasingly fragile ecology of the main crops in Central America. This article analyzes these themes through a history of the coffee rust − Hemileia vastatrix− in Central America, with particular emphasis on Costa Rica.
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Crop epidemics provide a portal into the global and transnational environmental history of commodities. The coffee rust epidemic, caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, is one of the most serious diseases to have afflicted the global... more
Crop epidemics provide a portal into the global and transnational environmental history of commodities. The coffee rust epidemic, caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, is one of the most serious diseases to have afflicted the global coffee industry. In the nineteenth century, it devastated the coffee plantations in the Old World. It sharply curtailed arabica coffee production in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. This was one of the factors that allowed the Americas do dominate global coffee production in the twentieth century. The coffee rust epidemic was first detected in the Americas in the 1970s. The history of the rust epidemic in the Americas, and attempts to control it, shed light on two major paradigms that shaped the environmental history of coffee in the late twentieth century. The paradigm of technification, which dominated from the mid-20th century to the early 1990s; and the paradigm of sustainability, which dominated emerged in the mid-1980s and continues to the present.
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The quantitative growth of coffee production and consumption in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries produced qualitative transformations along every step of the coffee commodity chain. The economic integration of the global coffee... more
The quantitative growth of coffee production and consumption in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries produced qualitative transformations along every step of the coffee commodity chain. The economic integration of the global coffee market in this period triggered major east–west biological exchanges between the world’s coffee regions. The global epidemic of coffee leaf rust, caused by the fungus Hemileia vastatrix, illustrates the ecological and economic impact of such exchanges. Between 1865 and 1985, the epidemic spread from its original focus in Ceylon to engulf all of the world’s coffee zones. Its economic impact varied considerably: in some places it destroyed more than 90% of the coffee crop, while in others it was little more than a minor irritant. The epidemic’s origins, its diffusion, and its impacts were not accidental, but reflected specific conjunctures of local and global biological and historical processes.
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IN THE SPRING OF 1861, gorillas had captivated the public imagination in England. The recent publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species had fueled the ongoing debate about the place of humans in nature. A key piece of... more
IN THE SPRING OF 1861, gorillas had captivated the public imagination in England. The recent publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species had fueled the ongoing debate about the place of humans in nature. A key piece of evidence in the debate was the recently discovered ...
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During the late nineteenth century, many countries in tropical Latin America organized research institutions for the study of natural history. The political and economic élites who sponsored these institutions hoped to find new natural... more
During the late nineteenth century, many countries in tropical Latin America organized research institutions for the study of natural history. The political and economic élites who sponsored these institutions hoped to find new natural resources that could be sold to Europe and North ...
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STUART McCOOK is assistant professor of history at The College of New Jersey. He is currently finishing a book about the history of agricultural science in tropical Latin America to be published by the University of Texas Press. 1. On... more
STUART McCOOK is assistant professor of history at The College of New Jersey. He is currently finishing a book about the history of agricultural science in tropical Latin America to be published by the University of Texas Press. 1. On agriculture and the model export-led development ...
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McCook, Stuart. 2016. “‘Squares of Tropic Summer’: The Wardian Case, Victorian Horticulture, and the Logistics of Global Plant Transfers, 1770-1910.” In Global Scientific Practice in an Age of Revolutions, 1750-1850, edited by Patrick... more
McCook, Stuart. 2016. “‘Squares of Tropic Summer’: The Wardian Case, Victorian Horticulture, and the Logistics of Global Plant Transfers, 1770-1910.” In Global Scientific Practice in an Age of Revolutions, 1750-1850, edited by Patrick Manning and Daniel Rood, 199–215. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
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... DOI: 10.1353/lar.0.0043. Coffee and Flowers Recent Research on Commodity Chains, Neoliberalism, and Alternative Trade in Latin America. Stuart McCook The University of Guelph. ...Stuart McCook Stuart McCook is associate professor of... more
... DOI: 10.1353/lar.0.0043. Coffee and Flowers Recent Research on Commodity Chains, Neoliberalism, and Alternative Trade in Latin America. Stuart McCook The University of Guelph. ...Stuart McCook Stuart McCook is associate professor of history at the University of Guelph. ...
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University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England 2000 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tucker,... more
University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England 2000 by the Regents of the University of California Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tucker, Richard P., 1938– Insatiable appetite : the United ...
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... Breña's coverage is so extensive that the absence of a discussion of Masonic lodges is somewhat surprising ... to historians and anthro-pologists because they present a picture of native society that is ... for an introduction... more
... Breña's coverage is so extensive that the absence of a discussion of Masonic lodges is somewhat surprising ... to historians and anthro-pologists because they present a picture of native society that is ... for an introduction are too brief, too simplified, or too full of crackpot ideas to be ...
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"AVANCSO presenta a la consideración de los lectores los resultados de la investigación llevada a cabo por la historiadora italiana Stefania Gallini y que se presentan bajo el título de “Una historia ambiental del café en Guatemala.... more
"AVANCSO presenta a la consideración de los lectores los resultados de la investigación llevada a cabo por la historiadora italiana Stefania Gallini y que se presentan bajo el título de “Una historia ambiental del café en Guatemala. La Costa Cuca entre 1830 y 1902”. En este trabajo destacan, en primer lugar, los enfoques que la investigadora privilegió para orientar su búsqueda, siendo éstos los de la historia ambiental y la historia regional/local. En el primer caso, se trata de un abordaje que es pionero en la historiografía sobre Guatemala y que nos propone una nueva entrada analítica para entender y discutir sobre cómo el medio ambiente, a partir de la interacción que se desarrolla con los seres humanos, va cobrando relevancia, llegándose a constituir –también– en un agente histórico de primera magnitud. Lejos de verlo como un simple escenario en el que transcurren diversidad de acciones desplegadas con el propósito de obtener de él riquezas y recursos, éste también actúa y responde a las mismas de diferentes maneras. La llamada Costa Cuca, lejos de ser un espacio vacío que sólo cobró razón de ser a partir del empuje estatal dado al cultivo del café a finales del siglo XIX, se nos presenta como un agente que interactuaba de manera constante con las poblaciones vecinas del altiplano occidental. En el segundo caso, y entrelazándose con el primero, esos procesos estudiados se circunscriben dentro de una territorialidad concreta, con sus propias dinámicas y tensiones, distintas y distantes de las de carácter nacional. En cuanto a lo esencial de su contenido, se trata de una acuciosa lectura histórica sobre los procesos de transformación ocurridos en la región de estudio durante el siglo XIX. Acostumbrados como estamos a las “lecturas nacionales” sobre los procesos que generó el cultivo del café a escala nacional, este libro nos plantea una perspectiva analítica descentradota y, también, desmitificadora, sobre ciertos aspectos de esos procesos que hasta ahora sólo han sido “leídos” en clave nacional. De esta cuenta, queda claro que no fue el café el motor principal que levantó ese territorio, sino que ya desde mucho antes ocurrían en él diversidad de interacciones que obedecían a lógicas locales y regionales. Más bien, lo que si hizo el café fue transformar ese paisaje, con secuelas desafortunadas para sus antiguos propietarios y usufructuadores, como en el espacio mismo. En ese sentido, el trabajo devela los efectos devastadores que la expansión que experimentó el cultivo del café tuvo sobre las comunidades indígenas de la región, más concretamente sobre San Martín Sacatepéquez. Efectos perniciosos tanto en términos de pérdida de sus ancestrales territorios, como en lo relacionado a la destrucción de la diversidad ambiental que allí existía antes de la expansión del grano de oro. Diversidad que era básica y fundamental para la reproducción y subsistencia de dicha comunidad. Este trabajo es importante, en primer lugar, porque es una invitación a las nuevas generaciones de investigadores –sobre todo historiadores– para acercarse al estudio e investigación sobre nuestros procesos históricos desde nuevas perspectivas y con nuevas preguntas. En segundo lugar, porque de su lectura se desprenden una serie de reflexiones sobre hasta dónde los pregonados modelos de desarrollo que se han venido imponiendo en Guatemala desde los sectores de poder económico, incentivados desde fuera, han resultado realmente beneficiosos para el país. Más bien, llama a considerar sobre los costos ambientales y humanos implícitos que entran en juego cuando se responde acríticamente a las demandas del mercado internacional, sin evaluar ni estimar los diversos y profundos efectos que se pueden generar internamente. Con esta publicación AVANCSO quiere contribuir a posicionar el papel que debe desempeñar la historia en la discusión sobre la construcción de un futuro común para todos los y las guatemaltecas, que sea incluyente y que responda a nuestras capacidades y circunstancias sociales y ambientales concretas. AVANCSO Diciembre 2008 http://www.avancso.org.gt/index_publicaciones.php?id=75&pub=155"