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1750-1850: La independencia de México a la luz de cien años. Problemáticas y desenlaces de una larga transición. Edited by Brian Connaughton. Mexico City: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa/Ediciones del Lirio, 2010. Pp. 604. Notes. Index.
Numerous books and articles were published in 2010 to mark the occasion of the bicentennial of Mexico's struggle for independence. Most of these works focused on Spanish liberalism and the insurgent war, which triggered the revolution in New Spain between 1808 and 1810. The book Brian Connaughton has coordinated is presented as an exception. Here, the goal is not to explain the independence process but to explain the longer progression of the Spanish monarchy's collapse and the difficult course of Mexican state-building. For this reason, the book's chapters deal with topics different from those just mentioned and different from each other, from conflict between royalist authorities and the clergy in the 1790s to the popular mobilization in Mexico City in 1840. The result is a book rieh in themes and interpretations, useful for understanding the period's various aspects.
Unfortunately, the book also evidences some of the serious problems of edited volumes. For example, I do not think that a scholar interested in the question of...