The Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration

“Burrows’s pioneering and engaging study of the PRRA’s Engineering Division makes important contributions to understandings of the New Deal as imperial reform and of its relationship to Puerto Rican populism. An essential read for students and scholars of U.S. empire, Puerto Rico, the New Deal, and histories of public works.”—Anne S. Macpherson, author of From Colony to Nation: Women Activists and the Gendering of Politics in Belize, 1912–1982

“A must-read for students and scholars interested in Puerto Rican history, the New Deal, and modernization in the Caribbean and Latin America. . . . Going beyond the binary of resistance or integration, Burrows reminds us how colonialism operated (and operates) in Puerto Rico and how Puerto Ricans have navigated it.”—American Historical Review

"Burrows makes a groundbreaking contribution to the regional historiography devoted to the study of the Great Depression. For Puerto Rican, US, and Latin American scholars, this study provides a powerful history that clearly explains how the economic havoc experienced by the United States in the 1930s transcended its national boundaries and affected the destinies of the inhabitants of a Spanish-speaking territorial possession in the Caribbean for years after."—H-Net

"A well-documented and tightly argued account of a key institution of the New Deal as applied to a colonial territory of the United States. . . . Burrows’s painstaking research fills in some gaps in the historical record on Puerto Rico and raises provocative questions about the parallels between the economic crisis of the 1930s and the more recent recession on the island (2006–24)."—Hispanic American Historical Review

"Burrows’ thoroughly researched and eminently readable study offers a wealth of information and important insights that extend beyond PRAA and the New Deal to include Puerto Rican politics and the “modernization” of the archipelago’s economy and infrastructure from the 1930s through the 1950s."—Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies