The subject of cattle has featured prominently in the Amazonian literature from the outset of colonisation and development strategies linked to the Transamazon Highway and the Plan for National Integration (c. 1970). One of the major talking points has been – and continues to be – the relationship between cattle ranching and deforestation. From outside Brazil, this relationship has generally been seen as one in which biological intactness and environmentalist virtue are being sacrificed for carnivorous satisfaction and profiteering off the back of public lands; from inside Brazil, reactions have been more mixed with many viewing the clearing of forest for cattle (and ranching is the main driver of forest clearance) as evidence of modernisation and progress. In the earliest phase of Transamazon colonisation cattle ranching in the Amazon was enthusiastically promoted by the government through tax incentives of astonishing generosity, part of a package, many critics said, of government attempts to reward supporters of the National Security State and simultaneously encourage private investment in the face of a shortage of public funds. Although cattle ranching suffered much criticism, it has pursued a rising career, and with the lifting of the ban on the export of Brazilian beef early this century, Amazonian exports are a significant part of the national total. The Amazonian beef industry has received support from CAN lobbying, and with former chief Kátia Abreu as Agriculture Minister it is unlikely to fall out of favour, regardless of the condemnation of rates of deforestation.

That backdrop is the setting for Hoelle's case study of one niche of a regional agro-industrial economy, that of Acre. In key respects, this is a setting of heightened contrast inasmuch as Acre is both a site of aggressive pastoral activity as well as of the most celebrated example of alternative forest use, the extractive reserves that are the legacy of Chico Mendes and the Rubber Tappers’ Union.

Hoelle's anthropological study – based on PhD research between 2007 and 2010 – focuses on what he refers to as ‘cowboy culture’, a concept meant to embrace the increasingly bovine-centric lives of Acreanos previously sharply divided over cattle-based livelihoods. These are the (for the most part) incoming ranchers (mainly from the Centre–South, but also from the Northeast), small-holder agriculturalists and rubber tappers. The central thesis is that cattle ranching is the central model for rural livelihoods and ‘culture’ in this part of Acre (Brasiléia, on the border with Bolivia) regardless of other affiliations and class positions.

The book is fashioned in the increasingly popular narrative/memoir idiom that has substantially replaced the traditional scientific monograph, and includes commentary that the author provided to his hometown newspaper (in Texas) during his time in the field. That aside, it presents data within a familiar framework of qualitative and quantitative comparison.

As a case study of a particular place at a particular time it is a revealing portrait of the diverse residents of Western Amazonia. The discussion is very much shaped around the centrality of cattle-and-cowboy-culture (now valued even by rubber tappers) even though it is clear that the social landscape is, if deeply expressive of ‘cowboy culture’, only recently so focused. This compression of historical background is perhaps not so crucial in relation to the case study material, but it has an effect on evaluating trends in Acre in relation to cattle ranching developments in Amazonia as a whole.

Much about the developmental past of Amazonia is taken for granted and the brief historical overview (Chapter 1) does not convey much about the contested nature of Amazonian development over the past 40 years. Having sketched out some of the features of the impact of cattle ranching (Amazonia now produces 38 per cent of national cattle output; dramatic growth of exports since 2004; and so on), Hoelle also notes, almost in passing, that deforestation as a result, in the main, of cattle ranching has grown to 14.5 per cent of that of the Amazon region (although even a few years ago, a figure of 20 per cent was widely accepted), but this phenomenal shift attracts almost no discussion, as though decades of fierce rural conflict and what many observers regard as federal support for unregulated destruction had not significantly shaped the current situation. More particularly, and locally, the implications of the success of the extractive reserves movement are hardly discussed.

Comparisons of Acrean cattle culture and the cattle complexes of East Africa are raised, but with uncertain outcome, and the invocation of India (very much in passing) as well of reindeer adds little to the attempt to generalise Acrean ranching. The discussion of the appropriation of North American cowboy culture is more apposite (although mention of Indians is notably lacking), but the degree to which Tony Lamas, belt buckles and ten-gallon hats are more than artefacts of ideological affiliation requires more attention. The case study stands on its own, but there is simply not enough space to incorporate effectively all the broad comparative issues that arise.