Natalia Buier is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid. She is currently working on a historical ethnography of groundwater depletion in Southwestern Spain. Most recently, she has coedited, with Susana Narotzky and Theodora Vetta, Agricultural Extractivism in the Mediterranean Region: A Socioecological View (Palgrave Macmillan 2026).

“This book has upended my view of high-speed rail. Its analysis of HSR in Spain, the world’s second longest network, reveals why this colossal undertaking failed to alter the dominant mobility paradigm. Along the way, we learn richly from Buier’s observations on capital as an environment making-force.” • Gareth Dale, Brunel University“Especially unusual and original given the state of orthodox anthropology in the 21st century, the study of space and time that the author makes is ineluctably about class.” • Gavin Smith, University of Toronto

• AcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Frontiers of Appropriation and Capitalist Environment MakingPart I: Limits to the MarketChapter 1. Sliding on Bearings Greased with BanknotesChapter 2. A New Company Culture Part II: Limits to ConsensusChapter 3. A Total Modernization ProjectChapter 4. A Public and Social RailwayPart III: Limits to DevelopmentChapter 5. A Town Built from ScratchChapter 6. By Any Means NecessaryConclusion: War on Territory: An Inglorious Form of DevaluationReferencesIndex

Natalia Buier is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid. She is currently working on a historical ethnography of groundwater depletion in Southwestern Spain. Most recently, she has coedited, with Susana Narotzky and Theodora Vetta, Agricultural Extractivism in the Mediterranean Region: A Socioecological View (Palgrave Macmillan 2026).

“This book has upended my view of high-speed rail. Its analysis of HSR in Spain, the world’s second longest network, reveals why this colossal undertaking failed to alter the dominant mobility paradigm. Along the way, we learn richly from Buier’s observations on capital as an environment making-force.” • Gareth Dale, Brunel University“Especially unusual and original given the state of orthodox anthropology in the 21st century, the study of space and time that the author makes is ineluctably about class.” • Gavin Smith, University of Toronto

• AcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Frontiers of Appropriation and Capitalist Environment MakingPart I: Limits to the MarketChapter 1. Sliding on Bearings Greased with BanknotesChapter 2. A New Company Culture Part II: Limits to ConsensusChapter 3. A Total Modernization ProjectChapter 4. A Public and Social RailwayPart III: Limits to DevelopmentChapter 5. A Town Built from ScratchChapter 6. By Any Means NecessaryConclusion: War on Territory: An Inglorious Form of DevaluationReferencesIndex

Natalia Buier is a Ramón y Cajal researcher at the Complutense University of Madrid. She is currently working on a historical ethnography of groundwater depletion in Southwestern Spain. Most recently, she has coedited, with Susana Narotzky and Theodora Vetta, Agricultural Extractivism in the Mediterranean Region: A Socioecological View (Palgrave Macmillan 2026).

“This book has upended my view of high-speed rail. Its analysis of HSR in Spain, the world’s second longest network, reveals why this colossal undertaking failed to alter the dominant mobility paradigm. Along the way, we learn richly from Buier’s observations on capital as an environment making-force.” • Gareth Dale, Brunel University“Especially unusual and original given the state of orthodox anthropology in the 21st century, the study of space and time that the author makes is ineluctably about class.” • Gavin Smith, University of Toronto

• AcknowledgementsList of AbbreviationsIntroduction: Frontiers of Appropriation and Capitalist Environment MakingPart I: Limits to the MarketChapter 1. Sliding on Bearings Greased with BanknotesChapter 2. A New Company Culture Part II: Limits to ConsensusChapter 3. A Total Modernization ProjectChapter 4. A Public and Social RailwayPart III: Limits to DevelopmentChapter 5. A Town Built from ScratchChapter 6. By Any Means NecessaryConclusion: War on Territory: An Inglorious Form of DevaluationReferencesIndex