Barbasco and then...

Jungle Laboratories was an interesting look at a portion of the pharmaceutical industry and its interaction with a specific commodity. It is somewhat disappointing for the purposes of this class in a few respects compared to several of the other books we have read, however. This is very much a book about Mexico specifically, and its involvement in the synthetic hormone production industry. As a result, the book focuses almost entirely on one end of the commodity chain that leads to birth control pills among other products. Unless we consider the barbasco itself as the commodity, with the final form being the processed flour that is shipped to chemical laboratories for hormone production, then this book does not really seem to follow the entire commodity chain to the extent that we have seen in other works.

This is not to say that the book is bad. In fact, I think that it is a phenomenal work, especially looking at the sources that Gabriela Laveaga makes use of. I just think that this is a very extreme version of a ‘window’ commodity history that uses a commodity to look at something entirely different. In this case, the book is almost entirely focused on a specific attempt at the development of a Mexican pharmaceuticals industry. This book is about the organization of labor, it is about industrial development and industrialization, it is about the development and changing of communities, and it is about national identity and the shaping of national symbols. Unfortunately, what it feels this book is not about is commodities. Barbasco is a vehicle around which all the change in this book rotates, but the commodities that barbasco is an essential component for are virtually absent (in and of itself a significant point when it comes to the discussion of Mexico and to some of the events and viewpoints there!) I suspect that this book, while an excellent book considered independently, is probably going to be one of the books I drop simply because it does not feel very much like it is focused on the commodity itself.