An edition of Beyond the big ditch (2014)

Beyond the big ditch

politics, ecology, and infrastructure at the Panama Canal

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Last edited by MARC Bot
May 16, 2025 | History
An edition of Beyond the big ditch (2014)

Beyond the big ditch

politics, ecology, and infrastructure at the Panama Canal

  • 4.0 (1 rating)
  • 1 Have read

"In this innovative book, Ashley Carse traces the water that flows into and out from the Panama Canal to explain how global shipping is entangled with Panama's cultural and physical landscapes. By following container ships as they travel downstream along maritime routes and tracing rivers upstream across the populated watershed that feeds the canal, he explores the politics of environmental management around a waterway that links faraway ports and markets to nearby farms, forests, cities, and rural communities. Carse draws on a wide range of ethnographic and archival material to show the social and ecological implications of transportation across Panama. The Canal moves ships over an aquatic staircase of locks that demand an enormous amount of fresh water from the surrounding region. Each passing ship drains 52 million gallons out to sea -- a volume comparable to the daily water use of half a million Panamanians. Infrastructures like the Panama Canal, Carse argues, do not simply conquer nature; they rework ecologies in ways that serve specific political and economic priorities. Interweaving histories that range from the depopulation of the U.S. Canal Zone a century ago to road construction conflicts and water hyacinth invasions in canal waters, the book illuminates the human and nonhuman actors that have come together at the margins of the famous trade route. 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the Panama Canal. Beyond the Big Ditch calls us to consider how infrastructures are materially embedded in place, producing environments with winners and losers."--Publisher's description.

Publish Date
Publisher
The MIT Press
Language
English
Pages
298

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Previews available in: English

Book Details


Table of Contents

The machete and the freighter
Monte
Making the Panama Canal Watershed
Frank Robinson's map
Life along the river (Miocene-1903)
Hydropolitics, territory, and canal construction
Pueblos perdidos or how the lake ate the river
Banana republic? The agricultural possibilities of the Canal Zone
Getting across and getting around
The highway : the world united, Panama divided
Conquest of the jungle : the moral economy of rural infrastructure
Weeds
A demanding environment.

Edition Notes

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-274) and index.

Published in
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Series
Infrastructures series
Copyright Date
2014

Classifications

Dewey Decimal Class
972.87/505
Library of Congress
TC774 .C4365 2014, TC774.C4365 2014

The Physical Object

Pagination
xv, 298 pages
Number of pages
298

Edition Identifiers

Open Library
OL31018099M
Internet Archive
beyondbigditchpo0000cars_r1b4
ISBN 10
0262028115
ISBN 13
9780262028110
LCCN
2014008289
OCLC/WorldCat
880520994

Work Identifiers

Work ID
OL23183728W

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May 16, 2025 Edited by MARC Bot import existing book
August 17, 2024 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
January 15, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
January 15, 2023 Edited by ImportBot import existing book
November 12, 2020 Created by MARC Bot Imported from Library of Congress MARC record