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Brazil is the fifth-largest country on the planet, and about 90 percent of its territory is located within the tropics. This makes Brazil the largest tropical country and the most biodiverse on Earth. Especially since its process of state building in the 19th century, the image of the Brazilian nation has been intensely associated with the ideal of an exuberant and sumptuous nature, a land of fertility and abundance, like the Amazon rainforest. However, within this gigantic and diverse territory, there were many areas that differed from that nation ideal, like the semi-arid zone located mainly in the countryside of the region that from the middle of the 20th century became known as the Brazilian Northeast. Integrating this semi-arid zone - that is considered the largest tropical dry forest in South America - into the nation project headed by the Imperial Court in Rio de Janeiro was an important challenge in the construction of Brazil in the 19th century. The climate issue was a decisive key to guiding this process. Although the famous drought in 1877 still frequently appears as the starting point for the importance of the political debate on the semi-arid climate in Brazil, the relations between climate and power in this territory were made earlier. Since the beginnings of the Brazilian Empire in the 1820s, for example, policies to deal with these climatic phenomena were decisive to articulate the power between local elites and the empire. These policies were transformed from occasional succors like groceries especially to water reservoirs after the 1840s. Handling the rainless climate would be crucial to uphold the imperial order in that semi-arid territory. The empire sought to have control not only over the people but also over the weather. However, this relationship between the empire and the “arid hinterland” took shape within the political and environmental Brazilian puzzle at that time, rather than a mere imposition from the court.

Following independence in the early 19th century Argentina went through decades of internal political and social turmoil. During this time the sciences traversed a dormant period and operated at the amateur level, such as through collectors and hobbyists. Beginning in the 1850s and continuing through the 1860s, many of Argentina’s internal problems eroded. The newly consolidated state undertook a process of extending its influence throughout the nation and fostering a closer and collaborative association with the nation’s interior to foster national unity. Under the banner of ‘civilization, order, and progress’, ruling liberal elites looked for ways to herald social and economic development. The sciences, through practice and institutionalized places, played a critical role for the state. By the beginning of the 20th century, the state had invested in scientific ventures into Patagonia and other areas of the nation to collect and catalogue materials, such as fossils and plants, and had supported the construction of museums to display scientific collections to the public as a means to develop a national identity. Beyond museums and naturalists, the state financed the maturation of the medical sciences to respond to the waves of epidemic diseases that assaulted the nation and the numerous regional endemic diseases that elites presented as evidence of underdevelopment, such as malaria in the northwest and recurrent cholera and smallpox outbreaks throughout the nation. Fields such as meteorology and engineering provided the physical infrastructure to further integrate the nation, through railroads, the standardization of national time, and a space for local Argentine scientific actors to establish national and international careers. With the increased professionalization of numerous scientific fields, the bond between the state and scientists matured. Many used this as a platform to enter into politics, such as Eduardo Wilde, hygienist and Minister of the Interior. Others provided their services to the state to form public policy, as happened for example with the work of psychiatrists, criminologists, engineers, and hygienists. Collectively, these fields demonstrated that the sciences witnessed significant growth into the first quarter of the 20th century.