This is a clear yet detailed history of interactions between animals, humans, and the global markets they create together. A growing critique of both animal studies and commodities studies is that these sometimes examine their subjects as following a preordained rise to prominence. Thus, it is refreshing to read Soluri’s nuanced study of Patagonia, where relationships between humans and animals rose, fell, and changed, often creating new conditions and interactions in unpredictable ways.
Soluri emphasizes that Patagonia’s animals never existed in an isolated nor “wild” environment. Indigenous peoples had long hunted and traded animals in the region. However, the arrival of Europeans looking to use Patagonian animals, and later its ecology, to serve global markets marked a dramatic transformation for the region starting in the mid-1800s. European and US seal hunters arrived in search of valuable furs. Seal hunting was brute extractive capitalism—Soluri estimates that hunters killed at least 200,000 seals in Patagonia between the 1870s and 1920s. Yet for that same reason, its effect on land tenure in the area was minimal as outsiders focused on extracting these resources from the sea and coastal inlets rather than claiming territory.
The long-term consequence of seal hunting in Patagonia was its ability to generate outside interest and knowledge about Patagonia. By the 1880s, sheep were introduced, and within just a decade, Patagonia became a leading exporter of wool worldwide. However, the “success” of one animal’s fate in the region came at a devastating cost: the demand for grazing land displaced much of Patagonia’s Indigenous population, subjecting them to imprisonment, abuse in missions, or even death.
The same pressures also displaced native species off their traditional lands and habitats. Additionally, wool industry workers faced harsh conditions, which led to labor unrest and government repression in the early 1920s. As Soluri argues, these developments make a compelling case for reevaluating wool alongside other infamous commodities such as cotton and sugar, whose histories are marked by significant human and ecological costs.
The unique biological elements of sheep and their wool that allowed the industry’s rapid rise in Patagonia also led to its fall after World War II with the rise of synthetic fibers that could more easily be produced and priced in uniform ways. As demand for wool declined, the native guanaco reemerged as a new animal factor in guiding Patagonia’s future. With their population declining out of either wool rancher hostility or indifference, the need to preserve a now-endangered species was one motivation for both Chile and Argentina to slowly piece together the foundations for creating national parks.
Ironically, the touristic appeal of national parks would prominently connect it to the Patagonia clothing brand, even as the region’s material contributions to clothing has declined. Soluri concludes by documenting how the current focus on preserving Patagonia’s untouched nature is somewhat misguided, as the flora and fauna supposedly “re-introduced” are fundamentally changed from their interactions with humans and other species over the previous centuries.
Beyond this central narrative are many other amazing details, Soluri shows how human–animal interactions could fundamentally change natural habits. Whereas seal hunting transformed seals to adopt more reclusive habitats and behavior, previously shy guanacos now often “ham it up” with camera-toting tourists. Soluri provides a detailed account of the global wool economy from Patagonia’s pastures to millworkers in England. Finally, Soluri also calls attention to animals’ influence on other animals by noting how the spread of sheep in Patagonia depended on their and their human controllers’ reliance on horses and dogs.
The fact that this book analyzes so many themes in what is a surprisingly clear, readable, and efficiently written style is commendable. It will also make this book a valuable tool for teaching at any level in Latin American history, animal studies, environmental history, and commodity and economic history.
