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 d’état, these pronunciamientos were actually a complex form of insurrectionary action that relied first on the proclamation and circulation of a plan that listed the petitioners’ demands and then on endorsement by copycat pronunciamientos that forced the authorities, be they national or regional, to the negotiating table. 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 (1858–60) and the ensuing French Intervention (1862–67). Given the frequency and importance of the pronunciamiento, this book is also a concise political history of independent Mexico.

Six bilingual children's stories from Mexico.

"A book that must be read by all Americans who desire a more critical understanding of the historical contributions that Africans made beyond the borders of the United States. It dramatically captures a history that has long been neglected by historians of the Mexican Revolution of 1810. . . . An important contribution that links the common histories of African and Latino Americans."--Carlos Muñoz, Jr., University of California, Berkeley Elected the first black Indian president of Mexico in 1829, Vicente Guerrero has been called the country's Washington and Lincoln. This revisionist biography of one of Mexico's most important historical figures--the person who issued the decree abolishing slavery--traces the impact of race and ethnicity on Mexico's national identity. An activist from boyhood and a mule driver by trade, Guerrero led a coalition of blacks and indigenous peoples during the difficult last years of Mexico's war for independence from Spain, 1810-21. In office, he taxed the rich, protected small businesses, tried to abolish the death penalty, and championed the village council movement in which peasants elected representatives without qualifications of race, property ownership, or literacy; he enjoyed signing his correspondence "Citizen Guerrero." In 1831 he was kidnapped and killed by his political opponents. This book also tells the story of seven generations of Guerrero's activist descendants, including his grandson Vicente Riva Palacio, the historian whose well-known writings elaborate on the ideals of a multiracial and democratic nation. Still in print today, his novels, essays, and five-volume national history are used here to help explain the factors that made the region of "El Sur" a center for political radicals from 1810 up to the revolution of 1910. For all readers interested in issues of diversity, this book will illuminate the evolving and distinct interactions of Indians, whites, and the descendants of the 250,000 Africans and 100,000 Asians brought to colonial Mexico. Theodore G. Vincent, a retired history instructor from the University of California, Berkeley, is a former newspaper columnist for the Los Angeles Herald Dispatch. He is the author of four books, most recently Keep Cool: The Black Activists Who Built the Jazz Age, and has published many articles on Afro-Mexico.

The first classroom reader devoted exclusively to nineteeth-century Mexican history, this volume brings together twenty-six essays and primary documents treating Mexico's Age of Caudillos. The readings—many by Mexican politicians, historians, and commentators and available here in English for the first time—are organized into four groups representing major eras in the early national development of Mexico: Independence, the age of Santa Anna, La Reforma and the French Intervention, and the Porfiriato. The selections range from autobiography to political and economic history, from the history of ideas to philosophy and social history. The interpretive essays represent both traditional and revisionist views, while the primary materials comprise both political documents and contemporary personal accounts.

Mexico's wars for independence were not fought to achieve political independence. Unlike their neighbors to the north, Mexico's revolutionaries aimed to overhaul their society. Intending profound social reform, the rebellion's leaders declared from the onset that their struggle would be incomplete, even meaningless, if it were merely a political event. Easily navigating through nineteenth-century Mexico's complex and volatile political environment, Timothy J. Henderson offers a well-rounded treatment of the entire period, but pays particular attention to the early phases of the revolt under the priests Miguel Hidalgo and José María Morelos. Hidalgo promised an immediate end to slavery and tailored his appeals to the poor, but also sanctioned pillage and shocking acts of violence. This savagery would ultimately cost Hidalgo, Morelos, and the entire country dearly, leading to the revolution's failure in pursuit of both meaningful social and political reform. While Mexico eventually gained independence from Spain, severe social injustices remained and would fester for another century. Henderson deftly traces the major leaders and conflicts, forcing us to reconsider what "independence" meant and means for Mexico today.

Concise Encyclopedia of Mexico includes approximately 250 articles on the people and topics most relevant to students seeking information about Mexico. Although the Concise version is a unique single-volume source of information on the entire sweep of Mexican history-pre-colonial, colonial, and moderns-it will emphasize events that affecting Mexico today, event students most need to understand.