Shows how wild yams, once considered useless, briefly became indispensable to the global pharmaceutical industry (as a source of synthetic steroid hormones) and to the peasants who gathered them.
Inhaltsverzeichnis
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction 1
1. The Papaloapan, Poverty, and a Wild Yam 23
2. Mexican Peasants, a Foreign Chemist, and the Mexican Father of the Pill 39
3. Discovering and Gathering the New "Green Gold" 71
4. Patents, Compounds, and Steroid-Making Peasants 91
5. A Yam, Students, and a Populist Project 113
6. The State Takes Control of Barbasco: The Emergence of Proquivemex (1974–1976) 133
7. Proquivemex and Transnational Steroid Laboratories 151
8. Barbasqueros into Mexicans 169
9. Roots of Discord 197
Epilogue 223
Appendix. General Questionnaire for Former Barbasco Pickers 237
Notes 239
Bibliography 287
Index 319
