This acclaimed book explores popular politics during Mexico's tumultuous post-independence decades. Focusing on Mexico City during the chaotic early years of the nineteenth century, Richard A. Warren offers a compelling narrative of the defining period from King Ferdinand VII's abdication of the Spanish crown in 1808 to the end of Mexico's first federal republic in 1836. Clearly written and meticulously researched, this book is the first to demonstrate that the relationship between elites and the urban masses was central to Mexico's political evolution during the fight for independence and after. Mexico City, capital of both the old viceroyalty and the new nation, often witnessed the first wave of "public opinion" to respond to competing political proposals in both traditional and new forms that ranged from riots to electoral campaigns. Warren explains the direct effects of these actions on political outcomes, as well as their influence on elite perceptions of the new nation's problems and potential solutions. Vagrants and Citizens explores the impact of urban mass mobilization on crucial issues of the era, such as the evolution of electoral practices, the conflict between federalists and centralists, and social control programs. Shedding new light on a poorly understood era, Warren demonstrates the importance of the urban masses both as actors in their own right and as objects of elite discourse and programs. His compelling narrative offers an ideal supplement for courses on Mexican and Latin American history.

"People out of Place reshapes our understanding of the 1960s by telling a previously unknown story about often overlooked criminal laws prohibiting vagrancy. As Beats, hippies, war protesters, Communists, racial minorities, civil rights activists, prostitutes, single women, poor people, and sexual minorities challenged vagrancy laws, the laws became a shared constitutional target for clashes over radically different visions of the nation's future"--

Reports for include report of the New York State Board of Social Welfare.

The novel from the Guardian First Book Award-winning Chinese writer acclaimed by Michel Faber as having ‘the talent, the vision and the respect for life's insoluble mysteries to be a truly fine writer.’