Cotton, crucial to the economy of the American South, has also played a vital role in the making of the Mexican north. The Lower Rio Bravo (Rio Grande) Valley irrigation zone on the border with Texas in northern Tamaulipas, Mexico, was the centerpiece of the Cardenas government's effort to make cotton the basis of the national economy.
This irrigation district, built and settled by Mexican Americans repatriated from Texas, was a central feature of Mexico's effort to control and use the waters of the international river for irrigated agriculture.
Drawing on previously unexplored...