Jungle laboratories : Mexican peasants, national projects, and the making of the Pill / Gabriela Soto Laveaga.

Durham [N.C.] : Duke University Press, 2009.

xiii, 331 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. [287]-317) and index.

The Papaloapan, poverty, and a wild yam -- Mexican peasants, a foreign chemist, and the Mexican father of the Pill -- Discovering and gathering the new "green gold" -- Patents, compounds, and steroid-making peasants -- A yam, students, and a populist project -- The state takes control of barbasco : the emergence of Proquivemex (1974/1976) -- Proquivemex and transnational steroid laboratories -- Barbasqueros into Mexicans -- Root of discord.