John Tutino

Cycles of Conflict, Centuries of Change: Crisis, Reform, and Revolution in Mexico

This important collection explores how Mexico’s tumultuous past informs its uncertain present and future. Cycles of crisis and reform, of conflict and change, have marked Mexico’s modern history. The final decades of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries each brought efforts to integrate Mexico into globalizing economies, pressures on the country’s diverse peoples, and attempts at reform. The crises of the late eighteenth century and the late nineteenth led to revolutionary mobilizations and violent regime changes. The wars for independence that began in 1810 triggered conflicts that endured for decades; the national revolution that began in 1910 shaped Mexico for most of the twentieth century. In 2000, the PRI, which had ruled for more than seventy years, was defeated in an election some hailed as “revolution by ballot.” Mexico now struggles with the legacies of a late-twentieth-century crisis defined by accelerating globalization and the breakdown of an authoritarian regime that was increasingly unresponsive to historic mandates and popular demands. nnLeading Mexicanists—historians and social scientists from Mexico, the United States, and Europe—examine the three fin-de-siecle eras of crisis. They focus on the role of the country’s communities in advocating change from the eighteenth century to the present. They compare Mexico’s revolutions of 1810 and 1910 and consider whether there might be a twenty-first-century recurrence or whether a globalizing, urbanizing, and democratizing world has so changed Mexico that revolution is improbable. Reflecting on the political changes and social challenges of the late twentieth century, the contributors ask if a democratic transition is possible and, if so, whether it is sufficient to address twenty-first-century demands for participation and justice.nnContributors . Antonio Annino, Guillermo de la Pena, Francois-Xavier Guerra, Friedrich Katz, Alan Knight, Lorenzo Meyer, Leticia Reina, Enrique Semo, Elisa Servin, John Tutino, Eric Van Young

Family Economies in Agrarian Mexico, 1750-1910

Studies of Mexican agrarian history long have focused on great estates and peasant communities, institutions presumed to dominate rural life. This essay suggests, however, that the agrarian poor first organized their lives in families—groups that dealt creatively with powerful people and institutions. It explores the ways the rural poor organized family economies not wholly subject to either great estates or villages. The conclusion is that family organization allowed the agrarian majority more independence from elites and powerful insti tutions than is generally accepted.

Dreaming of Dry Land: Environmental Transformation in Colonial Mexico City by Vera S. Candiani (review)

Vera Candiani’s study of the desagüe, the project to drain water from the basin ofMexico and hopefully inhibit flooding in Mexico City, treats the project from its inception in the sixteenth century to the early nineteenth century. Her exploration promises to bring new conversations, integrations, and questions to the study of New Spain. It is deeply researched, carefully argued, and clearly written. It focuses on the project and its promoters, designers, builders, and workers; in the process it opens new perspectives on the viceregal regime and Mexico City, and on the indigenous peoples who were throughout the majority of the producers and workers across the basin.

From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence 1750-1940

The description for this book, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1750-1940, will be forthcoming.