May Newsletter

Gisela Mateos and Edna Suarez Diaz are editors of this volume and have written the Introduction: Grounding Development in Mexico Abstract
The history of science and technology has transformed how to look at topics traditionally associated with other historical fields, such as industrialization and modernization, including the history of development interventions and technical assistance projects after World War II. Adopting and adapting research and analytical tools from different historical disciplines, such as the transnational approach and access to new archival collections worldwide, have produced nuanced narratives and sophisticated analyses of various geographies. Nevertheless, the history of technology in Latin America and Mexico, from the point of view of global history, is still underrepresented in the growing literature of the period. The new order had immediate implications for Mexico, reflected in the creation of several scientific and professional fields; the country’s geographic location and revolutionary national history presented her with specific challenges and opportunities. In this and the following chapters, we aim to give specific content to development, not as a purported national program or as an international model, but as a series of decisions, activities, and materialities usually grouped under “technical assistance.” Development is not being used here as the driving force of history but as a category that needs to be explained in local and historical terms.