Synopses & Reviews
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.
Review
" Rankin's book is a welcome addition to the field of postrevolutionary Mexican studies. . . . Hopefully, her study will serve as a basis for future studies that seek to broaden our understanding of the ways in which propaganda was received at the local level. "—Andrae Marak, H-Net Andrae Marak
Review
"Monica Rankin offers a reminder from a new generation that much remains to be examined about Latin America and World War II."—Friedrich E. Schuler, The Americas H-Net
Review
"Rankin's central premise that the U.S. and Mexican governments use propaganda to rally popular support for the war lends itself to comparative analysis of other countries during World War II or other wars. And, in today's wartime era, this makes Rankin's book timely and essential reading for historians of modern Mexico and U.S.-Mexican relations."—John J. Dwyer, American Historical Review Friedrich E. Schuler - The Americas
Review
and#8220;[Seen and Heard in Mexico] skillfully weaves together a variety of complex and significant threads while keeping at its center the important topic of the construction of childhood as a central component of postrevolutionary citizenship and nationalism.and#8221;and#8212;John Lear, professor of history at the University of Puget Sound and author of Workers, Neighbors, and Citizens: The Revolution in Mexico City
Review
and#8220;For the first time we have nearly a day-to-day account of the Victoriano Huerta regime in Mexico City in 1913 and its collapse in 1914. [Hintzeand#8217;s] diary provides an account of the anxieties, schemes, political conflicts, and diplomatic rivalries that crisscrossed the capital city. Friedrich Schulerand#8217;s detective work to find the diary and augment it with records from the German ministry of foreign relations makes this an outstanding resource on the Mexican revolutionary era.and#8221;and#8212;William H. Beezley, author ofand#160;Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico
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
“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
Synopsis
During the 1930s Mexico was undergoing a healing process after three decades of revolutionary turmoil and reform. In this climate, the coming of World War II became a major turning point in the legacy of the Mexican Revolution, offering the country a unique opportunity to unite against a common external enemy. The war also thrust the nation into an international forum as Germany and the United States launched propaganda campaigns to win over the Mexican people. In ¡México, la patria! Monica A. Rankin examines the pervasive domestic and foreign propaganda strategies in Mexico during World War II and their impact on Mexican culture, charting the evolution of these campaigns through popular culture, advertisements, art, and government publications throughout the war and beyond. In particular, Rankin shows how World War II allowed the wartime government of Ávila Camacho to justify an aggressive industrialization program following the Mexican Revolution. Finally, tracing how the American governments wartime propaganda laid the basis for a long-term effort to shape Mexican attitudes toward the countrys neighbor to the north, ¡México, la patria! reveals the increasing influence of American culture on the development of Mexicos postwar identity.
Synopsis
During the first two decades following the Mexican Revolution, children in the country gained unprecedented consideration as viable cultural critics, social actors, and subjects of reform. Not only did they become central to the reform agenda of the revolutionary nationalist government; they were also the beneficiaries of the largest percentage of the national budget.
While most historical accounts of postrevolutionary Mexico omit discussion of how children themselves experienced and perceived the sudden onslaught of resources and attention, Elena Jackson Albarrand#225;n, inand#160;Seen and Heard in Mexico, places childrenand#8217;s voices at the center of her analysis. Albarrand#225;n draws on archived records of childrenand#8217;s experiences in the form of letters, stories, scripts, drawings, interviews, presentations, and homework assignments to explore how Mexican childhood, despite the hopeful visions of revolutionary ideologues, was not a uniform experience set against the monolithic backdrop of cultural nationalism, but rather was varied and uneven. Moving children from the aesthetic to the political realm, Albarrand#225;n situates them in their rightful place at the center of Mexicoand#8217;s revolutionary narrative by examining the avenues through which children contributed to ideas about citizenship and nation.
and#160;
Synopsis
Admiral Paul von Hintze arrived in Mexico in the spring of 1911 to serve as Germanyand#8217;s ambassador to a country in a state of revolution. Germanyand#8217;s emperor Wilhelm II had selected Hintze as his personal eyes and ears in Mexico (and concomitantly the neighboring United States) during the portentous years leading up to the First World War. The ambassador benefited from a network of informers throughout Mexico and was closely involved in the countryand#8217;s political and diplomatic machinations as the violent revolution played out.
Murder and Counterrevolution in Mexico presents Hintzeand#8217;s eyewitness accounts of these turbulent years. Hintzeand#8217;s diary, telegrams, letters, and other records, translated, edited, and annotated by Friedrich E. Schuler, offer detailed insight into Victoriano Huertaand#8217;s overthrow and assassination of Francisco Madero and Huertaand#8217;s ensuing dictatorship and chronicle the U.S.-supported resistance.
Showcasing the political relationship between Germany and Mexico, Hintzeand#8217;s suspenseful, often daily diary entries provide new insight into the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution, including U.S. diplomatic maneuvers and subterfuge, as well as an intriguing backstory to the infamous 1917 Zimmermann Telegram, which precipitated U.S. entry into World War I.
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;
About the Author
Pablo Mijangos y Gonzand#225;lez is an assistant professor of history at the Centro de Investigaciand#243;n y Docencia Econand#243;micas (CIDE) in Mexico City. He is the author of a book on Mexicoand#8217;s contemporary legal historiography, published in Spain, and is coeditor of a volume on the origins and transformations of the Spanish American constitutional tradition, published in Mexico.