Category: Published 2016

Books published in 2016

Domesticating Organ: Transplant Familial Sacrifice and National Aspiration in Mexico

book_Domesticating Organ Transplant

Megan Crowley-Matoka
Duke University Press, 2016

Available to be reviewed, please contact tapuya.lasts@udlap.mx

Organ transplant in Mexico is overwhelmingly a family matter, utterly dependent on kidneys from living relatives—not from stranger donors typical elsewhere. Yet Mexican transplant is also a public affair that is proudly performed primarily in state-run hospitals. In Domesticating Organ Transplant, Megan Crowley-Matoka examines the intimate dynamics and complex politics of kidney transplant, drawing on extensive fieldwork with patients, families, medical professionals, and government and religious leaders in Guadalajara. Continue reading →

Rethink, Retool, Reboot: Technology as if people and planet mattered

book_Rethink Retool Reboot

Simon Trace
Practical Action Publishing, 2016

Available to be reviewed, please contact tapuya.lasts@udlap.mx

Rethink, Retool, Reboot presents the evidence and analysis that informs Practical Action’s organisational mission to create a world with Technology Justice: where technology and innovation is used to end poverty and provide a sustainable future for everyone on our planet.

A fifth of the world’s population lacks access to technologies fundamental to a basic standard of living – technologies needed to provide food, water, shelter, health and education. Continue reading →

Cuando la ciencia despertaba fantasías: prensa, literatura y ocultismo en la argentina de entresiglos

book_cuando la ciencia despertaba fantasias

Soledad Quereilhac
Siglo XXI, 2016

A fines del siglo XIX, la ciencia no era todavía como la conocemos hoy. Lejos de ser sólo un saber de especialistas, formaba parte también del universo cotidiano de las personas. Presente en todas las formas de difusión destinadas al gran público, fascinaba a quienes se dejaban encantar por sus promesas de cambio y por los potenciales mundos que permitía imaginar. Continue reading →

City on Fire: Technology, Social Change, and the Hazards of Progress in Mexico City, 1860–1910

book_city on fire

Anna Rose Alexander
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016

Available to be reviewed, please contact tapuya.lasts@udlap.mx

By the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to modernize and industrialize Mexico City had the unintended consequence of exponentially increasing the risk of fire while also breeding a culture of fear. Through an array of archival sources, Anna Rose Alexander argues that fire became a catalyst for social change, as residents mobilized to confront the problem. Advances in engineering and medicine soon fostered the rise of distinct fields of fire-related expertise while conversely, the rise of fire-profiteering industries allowed entrepreneurs to capitalize on crisis. Continue reading →