The Dread Plague and the Cow Killers

Thomas Rath is Associate Professor of History at University College London. He is the author of Myths of Demilitarization in Postrevolutionary Mexico, 1920-60 and numerous articles, chapters, and reviews on Mexico's political and social history.

• Introduction; 1. Animals and government in Mexico; 2. Sharing sovereignty in a technical commission; 3. Spiking the sanitary rifle: Argument and opposition; 4. Soldiers, syringes, surveys, and secrets: Encountering resistance; 5. Making a livestock state; 6. Mexico and the Cold War on animal disease; Afterword.

'Rath's superb study is a model of intrepid historical investigation, explanatory clarity, analytical acuity, and narrative grace. The stories of faked pig deaths, cattle hidden in volcanic craters, strychnine-filled syringes strapped to the hoods of jeeps, armed livestock inspectors, and deadly assaults on veterinarians make for compelling reading. However, in Rath's hands, they also constitute the all-too-human evidence of the bio-political stakes of managing animals and germs and the fraught development of Mexico's post-revolutionary 'livestock state'.' Raymond Craib, Cornell University