This book is a radical reinterpretation of the process that led to Mexican independence in 1821-one that emphasizes Mexico's continuity with Spanish political culture. During its final decades under Spanish rule, New Spain was the most populous, richest, and most developed part of the worldwide Spanish Monarchy, and most novohispanos (people of New Spain) believed that their religious, social, economic, and political ties to the Monarchy made union preferable to separation. Neither the American nor the French Revolution convinced the novohispanos to sever ties with the Spanish Monarchy; nor did the Hidalgo Revolt of September 1810 and subsequent insurgencies cause Mexican independence. It was Napoleon's invasion of Spain in 1808 that led to the Hispanic Constitution of 1812. When the government in Spain rejected those new constituted arrangements, Mexico declared independence. The Mexican Constitution of 1824 affirms both the new state's independence and its continuance of Spanish political culture.

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 Hernandez Chavez, Sandra Kuntz Ficker, Andres Resendez, Jaime E. Rodriguez O., and Jose Antonio Serrano Ortega"

2018 Outstanding Academic Title, selected by Choice Political Culture in Spanish America, 1500-1830 examines the nature of Spanish American political culture by reevaluating the political theory, institutions, and practices of the Hispanic world. Consisting of eight case studies with a focus on New Spain and Quito, Jaime E. Rodriguez O. demonstrates that the process of independence of Spanish America differs from previous claims. In 1188 King Alfonso IX convened the Cortes, the first congress in Europe that included the three estates: the clergy, the nobility, and the towns. This heritage, along with events in the sixteenth century, including the rebellion of Castilla and the Protestant Reformation, transformed the nature of Hispanic political thought. Rodriguez O. argues that those developments, rather than the Enlightenment, were the basis of the Hispanic revolution and the Constitution of 1812. Emphasizing continuity rather than the rejection of Hispanic political culture, and including the Atlantic perspective, Political Culture in Spanish America, 1500-1830 demonstrates the nature of the Hispanic revolution and the process of independence. Rodriguez O.'s work will encourage historians of Spanish America to reexamine the political institutions and processes of those nations from a broad perspective to gain a deeper understanding of the Spanish American countries that emerged from the breakup of the composite monarchy.