This unique book traces Mexico's eventful years from 1910 to 1952 through the experiences of its state governors. During this seminal period, revolutionaries destroyed the old regime, created a new national government, built an official political party, and then discarded in practice the essence of their revolution. In this tumultuous time, governors some of whom later became president served as the most significant intermediaries between the national government and the people it ruled. Leading scholars study governors from ten different states to demonstrate the diversity of the governors' experiences implementing individual revolutionary programs over time, as well as the waxing and waning of strong governorship as an institution that ultimately disappeared in the powerful national regime created in the 1940s and 1950s. Until that time, the contributors convincingly argue, the governors provided the revolution with invaluable versatility by dealing with pressing issues of land, labor, housing, and health at the local and regional levels. The flexibility of state governors also offered test cases for the implementation of national revolutionary laws and campaigns. The only book that considers the state governors in comparative perspective, this invaluable study offers a fresh view of regionalism and the Revolution. Contributions by: William H. Beezley, Jurgen Buchenau, Francie R. Chassen-Lopez, Michael A. Ervin, Maria Teresa Fernandez Aceves, Paul Gillingham, Kristin A. Harper, Timothy Henderson, David LaFrance, Stephen E. Lewis, Stephanie J. Smith, and Andrew Grant Wood."

This unique book traces Mexico's eventful years from 1910 to 1952 through the experiences of its state governors. During this seminal period, revolutionaries destroyed the old regime, created a new national government, built an official political party, and then discarded in practice the essence of their revolution. In this tumultuous time, governors some of whom later became president served as the most significant intermediaries between the national government and the people it ruled. Leading scholars study governors from ten different states to demonstrate the diversity of the governors' experiences implementing individual revolutionary programs over time, as well as the waxing and waning of strong governorship as an institution that ultimately disappeared in the powerful national regime created in the 1940s and 1950s. Until that time, the contributors convincingly argue, the governors provided the revolution with invaluable versatility by dealing with pressing issues of land, labor, housing, and health at the local and regional levels. The flexibility of state governors also offered test cases for the implementation of national revolutionary laws and campaigns. The only book that considers the state governors in comparative perspective, this invaluable study offers a fresh view of regionalism and the Revolution. Contributions by: William H. Beezley, Jurgen Buchenau, Francie R. Chassen-Lopez, Michael A. Ervin, Maria Teresa Fernandez Aceves, Paul Gillingham, Kristin A. Harper, Timothy Henderson, David LaFrance, Stephen E. Lewis, Stephanie J. Smith, and Andrew Grant Wood."

The only substantive study of Plutarco Elias Calles and the Mexican Revolution, this book traces the remarkable life story of a complex and little-understood, yet key figure in Mexico's history. Jurgen Buchenau draws on a rich array of archival evidence from Mexico, the United States, and Europe to explore Calles's origins and political trajectory. He hailed from Sonora, a border state marked by fundamental social and economic change at the turn of the twentieth century. After dabbling in various careers, Calles found the early years of the revolution (1910-1920) afforded him the chance to rise to local and ultimately national prominence. As president from 1924 to 1928, Calles embarked on an ambitious reform program, modernized the financial system, and defended national sovereignty against an interventionist U.S. government. Yet these reforms failed to eradicate underdevelopment, corruption, and social injustice. Moreover, his unyielding campaigns against the Catholic Church and his political enemies earned him a reputation as a repressive strongman. After his term as president, Calles continued to exert broad influence as his country's foremost political figure while three weaker presidents succeeded each other in an atmosphere of constant political crisis. He played a significant role in founding a ruling party that reined in the destructive ambitions of leading army officers and promised to help campesinos and workers attain better living conditions. This dynastic party and its successors, including the present-day Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI, or Party of the Institutional Revolution), remained in power until 2000. Many of the institutions and laws forged during the Calles era survived into the present. Through this comprehensive assessment of a quintessential politician in an era dominated by generals, entrepreneurs, and educated professionals, Buchenau opens an illuminating window into the Mexican Revolution and contemporary Mexico."

Earthquakes have helped shape the history of many Latin American nations. The effects of floods, droughts, hurricanes, and earthquakes and tsunamis have destroyed peoples' lives and their built environments, and changed land forms, such as mountains, rivers, forests, and canyons.
This collection of essays focuses on earthquakes in Latin America since the mid-nineteenth century. Often interpreted as evidence of God's wrath, internalized as punishment for sins, and serving as detonators of revolutions, earthquakes have shined an unforgiving light on political corruption and provided new opportunities to previously disadvantaged groups. These analyses of earthquakes reveal the human role in shaping interactions with our environment.
Contributors:
Paul J. Dosal, University of South Florida, Tampa
Virginia Garrard-Burnett, University of Texas, Austin
Mark Healey, University of California, Berkeley
Samuel J. Martland, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Terre Haute, Indiana
Stuart McCook, University of Guelph, Ontario
Charles Walker, University of California, Davis
Louise E. Walker, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge

In this concise historical analysis of the Mexican Revolution, Gilbert M. Joseph and Jurgen Buchenau explore the revolution's causes, dynamics, consequences, and legacies. They do so from varied perspectives, including those of campesinos and workers; politicians, artists, intellectuals, and students; women and men; the well-heeled, the dispossessed, and the multitude in the middle. In the process, they engage major questions about the revolution. How did the revolutionary process and its aftermath modernize the nation's economy and political system and transform the lives of ordinary Mexicans? Rather than conceiving the revolution as either the culminating popular struggle of Mexico's history or the triumph of a new (not so revolutionary) state over the people, Joseph and Buchenau examine the textured process through which state and society shaped each other. The result is a lively history of Mexico's "long twentieth century," from Porfirio Diaz's modernizing dictatorship to the neoliberalism of the present day.

This rich anthology provides a glimpse of modern Mexico through the eyes of foreign observers. Some of these selections are by well-known authors (Alexander von Humboldt, John Reed, B. Traven, Evelyn Waugh). Some are unpublished pieces by little-known writers, and six are available here for the first time in English. The writings fall into four periods: the transitions to independence and Mexico's first decades as a sovereign country (1800-1867), the era of Liberal modernization (1867-1910), the Mexican Revolution (1910-1940), and the post-World War II era. Four major topics show up repeatedly: ethnicity, gender, and race; cultural differences between Mexicans and foreigners; political stability and instability; and the economy and its impact on Mexicans. Although observers expressed a wide range of viewpoints on these issues, they agreed in finding a stunning degree of ethnic and regional diversity as well as what they saw as stark contrasts between urban and rural, rich and poor, modernity and tradition. In addition to Anglo American authors, the anthology includes selections by German, French, Norwegian, and Spanish authors. Just over a third of the pieces are by women, who offer glimpses of private worlds closed to men, such as convent life, relations between women and their servants, and household affairs. Each selection contains biographical information on the author.

In this concise historical analysis of the Mexican Revolution, Gilbert M. Joseph and Jurgen Buchenau explore the revolution's causes, dynamics, consequences, and legacies. They do so from varied perspectives, including those of campesinos and workers; politicians, artists, intellectuals, and students; women and men; the well-heeled, the dispossessed, and the multitude in the middle. In the process, they engage major questions about the revolution. How did the revolutionary process and its aftermath modernize the nation's economy and political system and transform the lives of ordinary Mexicans? Rather than conceiving the revolution as either the culminating popular struggle of Mexico's history or the triumph of a new (not so revolutionary) state over the people, Joseph and Buchenau examine the textured process through which state and society shaped each other. The result is a lively history of Mexico's "long twentieth century," from Porfirio Diaz's modernizing dictatorship to the neoliberalism of the present day.