Synopses & Reviews
In late nineteenth-century Mexico the Mexican populace was fascinated with the countryand#8217;s booming railroad network. Newspapers and periodicals were filled with art, poetry, literature, and social commentaries exploring the symbolic power of the railroad. As a symbol of economic, political, and industrial modernization, the locomotive served to demarcate a nationand#8217;s status in the world. However, the dangers of locomotive travel, complicated by the fact that Mexicoand#8217;s railroads were foreign owned and operated, meant that the railroad could also symbolize disorder, death, and foreign domination.
In The Civilizing Machine Michael Matthews explores the ideological and cultural milieu that shaped the Mexican peopleand#8217;s understanding of technology. Intrinsically tied to the Porfiriato, the thirty-five-year dictatorship of Gen. Porfirio Dand#237;az, the booming railroad network represented material progress in a country seeking its place in the modern world. Matthews discloses how the railroadand#8217;s development represented the crowning achievement of the regime and the material incarnation of its mantra, and#8220;order and progress.and#8221; The Porfirian administration evoked the railroad in legitimizing and justifying its own reign, while political opponents employed the same rhetorical themes embodied by the railroads to challenge the manner in which that regime achieved economic development and modernization. As Matthews illustrates, the multiple symbols of the locomotive reflected deepening social divisions and foreshadowed the conflicts that eventually brought about the Mexican Revolution.
and#160;
Review
andquot;The author provides a fascinating collective profile of women leaders and their rise from rank and file to a rotating leadership group that controlled union politics for decades.andquot;andmdash;Susie S. Porter, Hispanic American Historical Review
Review
"Matthews's work makes a solid contribution to the growing literature on the Porfiriato."and#8212;William Schell, Jr., Americas
Review
and#8220;The first cultural study of railroads in Mexico. Matthewsand#8217;s study is timely . . . with lively accounts and interesting analysis.and#8221;and#8212;James A. Garza, associate professor of history and ethnic studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Review
and#8220;A new, broadly learned, critical, illuminating, and highly significant account of Clemente de Jesand#250;s Munguand#237;aand#8217;s important part in the struggles for Mexico. This is a book every historian of Mexico should read; its value will last long.and#8221;and#8212;John Womack, author of
Zapata and the Mexican Revolutionand#160;
Review
and#8220;The most thorough and extended intellectual history yet written of the Catholic Church as it faced up to the Reform, if not one of the better cultural histories of the Reform written from any angle.and#8221;and#8212;Matthew Butler, author of Popular Piety and Political Identity in Mexicoand#8217;s Cristero Rebellion: Michoacand#225;n, 1927and#8211;1929
Review
andldquo;An important contribution to historical studies, complementing the existing body of work on our understanding of Oaxaca, and adding a crucial piece to the puzzle.andrdquo;andmdash;Mark Brill, associate professor of musicology and world music at the University of Texas at San Antonio and the author of Music of Latin America and the Caribbeanand#160;
Review
“Deborah Toner deftly combines the methodologies of history and literary criticism to show how drink was crucial to ideas about the nation in nineteenth-century Mexico. Informed by the findings of the anthropology of alcohol, this book offers important contributions to Mexican social, intellectual, and literary history.”—Jeffrey Pilcher, author of Planet Taco: A Global History of Mexican Food
Review
“Toners blending of literary analysis with medical and criminal reports presents a valuable approach to studies of nationalism, Mexico, and Latin America.”—James A. Garza, author of The Imagined Underworld: Sex, Crime and Vice in Porfirian Mexico
Review
andquot;Heather Fowler-Salamini has given us a rich and satisfying book on the social and economic contours of coffee processing in the Candoacute;rdoba district of Veracruz.andquot;andmdash;Edward Beatty, Journal of Latin American Studies
Review
andquot;This is an original and valuable study that deepens our understanding of Porfirian modernity.andquot;andmdash;Robert F. Alegre, American Historical Review
Review
andldquo;Independent Mexico is one of the best college history texts I have read in a long time. The book is imaginative, well conceived, and well researched. . . . Will Fowler has put together a fascinating book on one of the most contested topics in the current debate about Latin America: the role of force in history.andrdquo;andmdash;Abdiel Oandntilde;ate, professor of Latin American studies at San Francisco State Universityand#160;
Review
andldquo;Ageeth Sluis has opened the history of the Mexican Revolution to the gendered gaze of urbanization, art, theater, and modernity. . . . A fascinating study.andrdquo;andmdash;Donna Guy, emerita professor of history at Ohio State University and author of Sex and Danger in Buenos Aires: Prostitution, Family, and Nation in Argentinaand#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;Deco Body, Deco City offers cutting-edge analysis and a sweeping look at subjects never before studied in twentieth-century Mexican history: markets, opera performers, urban parks, and how women navigated a revolutionary regime.andrdquo;andmdash;James Garza, associate professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraskaandndash;Lincoln and author of The Imagined Underworld: Sex, Crime, and Vice in Porfirian Mexico Cityand#160;and#160;and#160;
Review
andldquo;This is a great book. It enriches our understanding of the postrevolutionary decade and brings together social, gender, theater, and architectural history in the way that only the best cultural historians of Mexico can.andrdquo;andmdash;Victor Macandiacute;as-Gonzandaacute;lez, professor of history and womenandrsquo;s gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Wisconsinandndash;La Crosse
Review
andquot;Matthews supplies overwhelming evidence to show how the railroad engine became a cultural lightning rod. It is difficult to think of a contemporary corollary with such cultural significance, which only underscores the value of this book to understanding the late nineteenth century in Mexico.andquot;andmdash;Andrew Offenburger, Western Historical Quarterly
Synopsis
History is not just about great personalities, wars, and revolutions; it is also about the subtle aspects of more ordinary matters. On a day-to-day basis the aspects of life that most preoccupied people in late eighteenth- through mid nineteenth-century Mexico were not the political machinations of generals or politicians but whether they themselves could make a living, whether others accorded them the respect they deserved, whether they were safe from an abusive husband, whether their wives and children would obey themand#8212;in short, the minutiae of daily life.
Sonya Lipsett-Riveraand#8217;s Gender and the Negotiation of Daily Life in Mexico, 1750and#8211;1856 explores the relationships between Mexicans, their environment, and one another, as well as their negotiation of the cultural values of everyday life. By examining the value systems that governed Mexican thinking of the period, Lipsett-Rivera examines the ephemeral daily experiences and interactions of the people and illuminates how gender and honor systems governed these quotidian negotiations. Bodies and the built environment were inscribed with cultural values, and the relationship of Mexicans to and between space and bodies determined the way ordinary people acted out their culture.
Synopsis
In the 1890s, Spanish entrepreneurs spearheaded the emergence of Cand#243;rdoba, Veracruz, as Mexicoand#8217;s largest commercial center for coffee preparation and export to the Atlantic community. Seasonal women workers quickly became the major part of the agroindustryand#8217;s labor force. As they grew in numbers and influence in the first half of the twentieth century, these women shaped the workplace culture and contested gender norms through labor union activism and strong leadership. Their fight for workersand#8217; rights was supported by the revolutionary state and negotiated within its industrial-labor institutions until they were replaced by machines in the 1960s.
Heather Fowler-Salaminiand#8217;s Working Women, Entrepreneurs, and the Mexican Revolution analyzes the interrelationships between the regionand#8217;s immigrant entrepreneurs, workforce, labor movement, gender relations, and culture on the one hand, and social revolution, modernization, and the Atlantic community on the other between the 1890s and the 1960s. Using extensive archival research and oral-history interviews, Fowler-Salamini illustrates the ways in which the immigrant and womenand#8217;s work cultures transformed Cand#243;rdobaand#8217;s regional coffee economy and in turn influenced the development of the nationand#8217;s coffee agro-export industry and its labor force.and#160;
Synopsis
The Plan of San Diego, a rebellion proposed in 1915 to overthrow the U.S. government in the Southwest and establish a Hispanic republic in its stead, remains one of the most tantalizing documents of the Mexican Revolution. The plan called for an insurrection of Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and African Americans in support of the Mexican Revolution and the waging of a genocidal war against Anglos. The resulting violence approached a race war and has usually been portrayed as a Hispanic struggle for liberation brutally crushed by the Texas Rangers, among others.
The Plan de San Diego: Tejano Rebellion, Mexican Intrigue, based on newly available archival documents, is a revisionist interpretation focusing on both south Texas and Mexico. Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler argue convincingly that the insurrection in Texas was made possible by support from Mexico when it suited the regime of President Venustiano Carranza, who co-opted and manipulated the plan and its supporters for his own political and diplomatic purposes in support of the Mexican Revolution.
The study examines the papers of Augustine Garza, a leading promoter of the plan, as well as recently released and hitherto unexamined archival material from the Federal Bureau of Investigation documenting the day-to-day events of the conflict.
Synopsis
Mexicoand#8217;s
Reforma, the mid-nineteenth-century liberal revolution, decisively shaped the country by disestablishing the Catholic Church, secularizing public affairs, and laying the foundations of a truly national economy and culture.
and#160;and#160;The Lawyer of the Church is an examination of the Mexican clergyand#8217;s response to the Reforma through a study of the life and works of Bishop Clemente de Jesand#250;s Munguand#237;a (1810and#8211;68), one of the most influential yet least-known figures of the period. By analyzing how Munguand#237;a responded to changing political and intellectual scenarios in defense of the clergyand#8217;s legal prerogatives and social role, Pablo Mijangos y Gonzand#225;lez argues that the Catholic Church opposed the liberal revolution not because of its supposed attachment to a bygone past but rather because of its efforts to supersede colonial tradition and refashion itself within a liberal yet confessional state. With an eye on the international influences and dimensions of the Mexican church-state conflict, The Lawyer of the Church also explores how Mexican bishops gradually tightened their relationship with the Holy See and simultaneously managed to incorporate the papacy into their local affairs, thus paving the way for the eventual and#8220;Romanizationand#8221; of Mexican Catholicism during the later decades of the century.and#160;
Synopsis
In the hands of the state, music is a political tool. The Banda de Mand#250;sica del Estado de Oaxaca (State Band of Oaxaca, BME), a civil organization nearly as old as the modern state of Oaxaca itself, offers unique insights into the history of a modern political state.
and#160;In The Inevitable Bandstand, Charles V. Heath examines the BMEand#8217;s role as a part of popular political culture that the state of Oaxaca has deployed in an attempt to bring unity and order to its domain. The BME has always served multiple functions: it arose from musical groups that accompanied military forces as they trained and fought; today it performs at village patron saint days and at Mexicoand#8217;s patriotic celebrations, propagating religions both sacred and civic; it offers education in the ways of liberal democracy to its population, once largely illiterate; and finally, it provides respite from the burdens of life by performing at strictly diversionary functions such as serenades and Sunday matinees.
and#160;In each of these government-sanctioned roles, the BME serves to unify, educate, and entertain the diverse and fragmented elements within the state of Oaxaca, thereby mirroring the historical trajectory of the state of Oaxaca and the nation of Mexico from the pre-Hispanic and Spanish colonial eras to the nascent Mexican republic, from a militarized and fractured young nation to a consolidated postrevolutionary socialist state, and from a predominantly Catholic entity to an ostensibly secular one.
Synopsis
Drawing on an analysis of issues surrounding the consumption of alcohol in a diverse range of source materials, including novels, newspapers, medical texts, and archival records, this lively and engaging interdisciplinary study explores sociocultural nation-building processes in Mexico between 1810 and 1910. Examining the historical importance of drinking as both an important feature of Mexican social life and a persistent source of concern for Mexican intellectuals and politicians, Deborah Toners Alcohol and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century Mexico offers surprising insights into how the nation was constructed and deconstructed in the nineteenth century.
Although Mexican intellectuals did indeed condemn the physically and morally debilitating aspects of excessive alcohol consumption and worried that particularly Mexican drinks and drinking places were preventing Mexicos progress as a nation, they also identified more culturally valuable aspects of Mexican drinking cultures that ought to be celebrated as part of an “authentic” Mexican national culture. The intertwined literary and historical analysis in this study illustrates how wide-ranging the connections were between ideas about drinking, poverty, crime, insanity, citizenship, patriotism, gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity in the nineteenth century, and the book makes timely and important contributions to the fields of Latin American literature, alcohol studies, and the social and cultural history of nation-building.
Synopsis
In mid-nineteenth-century Mexico, garrisons, town councils, state legislatures, and an array of political actors, groups, and communities began aggressively petitioning the government at both local and national levels to address their grievances. Often viewed as a revolt or a coup dandrsquo;andeacute;tat, these
pronunciamientos were actually a complex form of insurrectionary action that relied first on the proclamation and circulation of a plan that listed the petitionersandrsquo; demands and then on endorsement by copycat pronunciamientos that forced the authorities, be they national or regional, to the negotiating table.and#160;In
Independent Mexico, Will Fowler provides a comprehensive overview of the pronunciamiento practice following the Plan of Iguala. This fourth and final installment in, and culmination of, a larger exploration of the pronunciamiento highlights the extent to which this model of political contestation evolved. The result of more than three decades of pronunciamiento politics was the bloody Civil War of the Reforma (1858andndash;60) and the ensuing French Intervention (1862andndash;67). Given the frequency and importance of the pronunciamiento, this book is also a concise political history of independent Mexico.
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Synopsis
In the turbulent decades following the Mexican Revolution, Mexico City saw a drastic influx of female migrants seeking escape and protection from the ravages of war in the countryside. While some settled in slums and tenements, where the informal economy often provided the only means of survival, the revolution, in the absence of men, also prompted women to take up traditionally male roles, created new jobs in the public sphere open to women, and carved out new social spaces in which women could exercise agency.
In Deco Body, Deco City, Ageeth Sluis explores the effects of changing gender norms on the formation of urban space in Mexico City by linking aesthetic and architectural discourses to political and social developments. Through an analysis of the relationship between female migration to the city and gender performances on and off the stage, the book shows how a new transnational ideal female physique informed the physical shape of the city. By bridging the gap between indigenismo (pride in Mexicoandrsquo;s indigenous heritage) and mestizaje (privileging the ideal of race mixing), this new female deco body paved the way for mestizo modernity. This cultural history enriches our understanding of Mexicoandrsquo;s postrevolutionary decades and brings together social, gender, theater, and architectural history to demonstrate how changing gender norms formed the basis of a new urban modernity.
About the Author
Will Fowler is a professor of Latin American studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the author or editor of several books, including Forceful Negotiations: The Origins of the andldquo;Pronunciamientoandrdquo; in Nineteenth-Century Mexico; Malcontents, Rebels, and andldquo;Pronunciadosandrdquo;: The Politics of Insurrection in Nineteenth-Century Mexico; and Celebrating Insurrection: The Commemoration and Representation of the Nineteenth-Century Mexican andldquo;Pronunciamientoandrdquo;, all published by the University of Nebraska Press.