Patriotism, Politics, and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Mexico

Patriotism, Politics, and Popular Liberalism in Nineteenth-Century Mexico
Author: Guy. Thomson
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 444
Release: 2001-09
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780842026840

This detailed local study of state formation in nineteenth-century Mexico focuses on the life of Juan Francisco Lucas, the principal Indian leader of the Puebla Sierra between 1854 and 1917. The book illustrates how, over seventy years, the Indian communities of the Puebla Sierra, through the leadership of Lucas, compelled their political leaders to execute the mandates of the liberal state on terms that were locally acceptable. The text also provides a detailed look at the patriotism, politics, and popular liberalism which flourished during this period in Mexican history. This is the first in-depth study to examine the great nineteenth-century divisions between liberals and conservatives and radical and moderate liberals over an extended time period and in a rural, multi-ethnic setting. The text also explores how these divisions reemerged during the Mexican Revolution. The volume shows the rise of Mexican nationalism and what rights and responsibilities it extended to individual Mexicans and independent communities. Through close attention to the political and human geography of the Puebla Sierra, Professor Thomson observes the continuities between the Sierra's colonial past and the present, and the interactions between key political individuals and a complex physical environment.

The Divine Charter

The Divine Charter
Author: Jaime E. Rodríguez O.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780742537101

Although Mexico began its national life in the 1821 as one of the most liberal democracies in the world, it ended the century with an authoritarian regime. Examining this defining process, distinguished historians focus on the evolution of Mexican liberalism from the perspectives of politics, the military, the Church, and the economy. Based on extensive archival research, the chapters demonstrate that--despite widely held assumptions--liberalism was not an alien ideology unsuited to Mexico's traditional, conservative, and multiethnic society. On the contrary, liberalism in New Spain arose from Hispanic culture, which drew upon a shared European tradition reaching back to ancient Greece. This volume provides the first systematic exploration of the evolution of Mexican liberal traditions in the nineteenth century. The chapters assess the changes in liberal ideology, the nature of federalism, efforts to create stability with a liberal monarchy in the 1860s, the Church's accommodation to the new liberal order, the role of the army and of the civil militias, the liberal tax system, and attempts to modernize the economy in the latter part of the century. Taken together, these essays provide a nuanced and comprehensive analysis of the transformation of liberalism in Mexico. Contributions by: Christon I. Archer, William H. Beezley, Marcello Carmagnani, Manuel Chust, Brian Connaughton, Robert H. Duncan, Aldo Flores-Quiroga, Alicia Hernández Chávez, Sandra Kuntz Ficker, Andrés Reséndez, Jaime E. Rodríguez O., and José Antonio Serrano Ortega

A Social History of Mexico's Railroads

A Social History of Mexico's Railroads
Author: Teresa Miriam Van Hoy
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2008
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780742553286

Largely absent from our history books is the social history of railroad development in nineteenth-century Mexico, which promoted rapid economic growth that greatly benefited elites but also heavily impacted rural and provincial Mexican residents in communities traversed by the rails. In this beautifully written and original book, Teresa Van Hoy connects foreign investment in Mexico, largely in railroad development, with its effects on the people living in the isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico's region of greatest ethnic diversity. Students will be drawn to a fascinating cast of characters, as muleteers, artisans, hacienda peons, convict laborers, dockworkers, priests, and the rural police force (rurales) join railroad regulars in this rich social history. New empirical evidence, some drawn from two private collections, elaborates on the huge informal economy that supported railroad development. Railroad officials sought to gain access to local resources such as land, water, construction materials, labor, customer patronage, and political favors. Residents, in turn, maneuvered to maximize their gains from the wages, contracts, free passes, surplus materials, and services (including piped water) controlled by the railroad. Those areas of Mexico suffering poverty and isolation attracted public investment and infrastructure. A Social History of Mexico's Railroads is the dynamic story of the people and times that were changed by the railroads and is sure to engage students and general readers alike.

State Formation in the Liberal Era

State Formation in the Liberal Era
Author: Ben Fallaw
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Total Pages: 361
Release: 2020-05-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0816541361

State Formation in the Liberal Era offers a nuanced exploration of the uneven nature of nation making and economic development in Peru and Mexico. Zeroing in on the period from 1850 to 1950, the book compares and contrasts the radically different paths of development pursued by these two countries. Mexico and Peru are widely regarded as two great centers of Latin American civilization. In State Formation in the Liberal Era, a diverse group of historians and anthropologists from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Latin America compare how the two countries advanced claims of statehood from the dawning of the age of global liberal capitalism to the onset of the Cold War. Chapters cover themes ranging from foreign banks to road building and labor relations. The introductions serve as an original interpretation of Peru’s and Mexico’s modern histories from a comparative perspective. Focusing on the tensions between disparate circuits of capital, claims of statehood, and the contested nature of citizenship, the volume spans disciplinary and geographic boundaries. It reveals how the presence (or absence) of U.S. influence shaped Latin American history and also challenges notions of Mexico’s revolutionary exceptionality. The book offers a new template for ethnographically informed comparative history of nation building in Latin America.

Bandits and Liberals, Rebels and Saints

Bandits and Liberals, Rebels and Saints
Author: Alan Knight
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Total Pages: 442
Release: 2022-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1496229428

In seven substantial essays, previously unpublished, Alan Knight offers a distinct perspective on several overarching themes in Latin American history, spanning approximately two centuries, from 1800 to 2000.

Liberalism as Utopia

Liberalism as Utopia
Author: Timo H. Schaefer
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2017-08-07
Genre: History
ISBN: 1107190738

This book explores the legal culture of nineteenth-century Mexico and explains why liberal institutions flourished in some social settings but not others.

The Last Colonial Massacre

The Last Colonial Massacre
Author: Greg Grandin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2011-06-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226306895

After decades of bloodshed and political terror, many lament the rise of the left in Latin America. Since the triumph of Castro, politicians and historians have accused the left there of rejecting democracy, embracing communist totalitarianism, and prompting both revolutionary violence and a right-wing backlash. Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Greg Grandin powerfully challenges these views in this classic work. In doing so, he uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries holding on to their power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the region. With Guatemala as his case study, Grandin argues that the Latin American Cold War was a struggle not between political liberalism and Soviet communism but two visions of democracy—one vibrant and egalitarian, the other tepid and unequal—and that the conflict’s main effect was to eliminate homegrown notions of social democracy. Updated with a new preface by the author and an interview with Naomi Klein, The Last Colonial Massacre is history of the highest order—a work that will dramatically recast our understanding of Latin American politics and the role of the United States in the Cold War and beyond. “This work admirably explains the process in which hopes of democracy were brutally repressed in Guatemala and its people experienced a civil war lasting for half a century.”—International History Review “A richly detailed, humane, and passionately subversive portrait of inspiring reformers tragically redefined by the Cold War as enemies of the state.”—Journal of American History

Victory on Earth or in Heaven

Victory on Earth or in Heaven
Author: Brian A. Stauffer
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Total Pages: 393
Release: 2019-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0826361285

This work reconstructs the history of Mexico’s forgotten “Religionero” rebellion of 1873–1877, an armed Catholic challenge to the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. An essentially grassroots movement—organized by indigenous, Afro-Mexican, and mestizo parishioners in Mexico’s central-western Catholic heartland—the Religionero rebellion erupted in response to a series of anticlerical measures raised to constitutional status by the Lerdo government. These “Laws of Reform” decreed the full independence of Church and state, secularized marriage and burial practices, prohibited acts of public worship, and severely curtailed the Church’s ability to own and administer property. A comprehensive reconstruction of the revolt and a critical reappraisal of its significance, this book places ordinary Catholics at the center of the story of Mexico’s fragmented nineteenth-century secularization and Catholic revival.

Counterhegemony in the Colony and Postcolony

Counterhegemony in the Colony and Postcolony
Author: J. Chalcraft
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2007-09-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230592163

This volume offers an unusual, interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars working on the major regions of the global South. The authors probe important episodes of resistance in the colony and postcolony for the light they shed on the vexed notion of counterhegemony, enriching our notion of resistance and pointing to new directions for research.

Republics of the New World

Republics of the New World
Author: Hilda Sabato
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2021-09-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0691227306

A sweeping history of Latin American republicanism in the nineteenth century By the 1820s, after three centuries under imperial rule, the former Spanish territories of Latin America had shaken off their colonial bonds and founded independent republics. In committing themselves to republicanism, they embarked on a political experiment of an unprecedented scale outside the newly formed United States. In this book, Hilda Sabato provides a sweeping history of republicanism in nineteenth-century Latin America, one that spans the entire region and places the Spanish American experience within a broader global perspective. Challenging the conventional view of Latin America as a case of failed modernization, Sabato shows how republican experiments differed across the region yet were all based on the radical notion of popular sovereignty--the idea that legitimate authority lies with the people. As in other parts of the world, the transition from colonies to independent states was complex, uncertain, and rife with conflict. Yet the republican order in Spanish America endured, crossing borders and traversing distinct geographies and cultures. Sabato shifts the focus from rulers and elites to ordinary citizens and traces the emergence of new institutions and practices that shaped a vigorous and inclusive political life. Panoramic in scope and certain to provoke debate, this book situates these fledgling republics in the context of a transatlantic shift in how government was conceived and practiced, and puts Latin America at the center of a revolutionary age that gave birth to new ideas of citizenship.