Content area
Full Text
THE ORIGINS OF MEXICAN NATIONAL POLITICS, 1808-1847. Edited by Jaime E. Rodriguez 0. (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1997. Pp. 127. $16.95 paper.)
FORGING MEXICO, 1821-1835. By Timothy E. Anna. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. Pp. 330. $40.00 cloth.)
MEXICANS AT ARMS: PURO FEDERALISTS AND THE POLITICS OF WAR, 1845-1848. By Pedro Santoni. (Fort Worth: Texas Christian University Press, 1996. Pp. 323. $29.50 cloth.)
NATIONAL POPULAR POLITICS IN EARLY INDEPENDENT MEXICO, 1820-1847 By Torcuato S. Di Tella. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. Pp. 383. $55.00 cloth.)
THE MEXICAN NATIONAL ARMY, 1822-1852. By William A. DePalo, Jr. (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1997. Pp. 280. $39.95 cloth.) MILITARY POLITICAL IDENTITY AND REFORMISM IN INDEPENDENT MEXICO:
AN ANALYSIS OF THE MEMORIAS DE GUERRA (1821-1855). By Will Fowler. (London: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 1996. Pp. 55. $10.00 paper.)
YUCATAN'S MAYA PEASANTRY AND THE ORIGINS OF THE CASTE WAR. By Terry Rugeley. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996. Pp. 243. $40.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.)
THE MACHETE AND THE CROSS: CAMPESINO REBELLION IN YUCATAN. By Don E. Dumond. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. Pp. 571. $57.50 cloth.)
SUMMER OF DISCONTENT, SEASONS OF UPHEAVAL: ELITE POLITICS AND RURAL INSURGENCY IN YUCATAN, 1876-1915. By Allen Wells and Gilbert M. Joseph. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. 406. $55.00 cloth, $18.95 paper.)
"Y mas terrible: la multiplication
geometrica de las sublevaciones,
cada sargento se cree emperador
en potencia, cada general calcula
los metros o kil6metros que lo
separan del Palacio de Gobierno."
Carlos Monsivais, "Prologo" to El gallo pitagorico
Jaime Rodriguez uses as the frontispiece of his book a political cartoon published in an 1853 issue of the Mexican newspaper El Universal, captioned "Todos quieren ser presidentes." The caption expresses clearly one reason for the persistent instability that pervaded nineteenth-century Mexican national and regional politics. Another reason was illuminated in the satire El gallo pitagorico by Juan Bautista Morales, nineteenth-century political commentator, federalist politician, and briefly governor of his natal state of Guanajuato.1 In it Morales trenchantly berated the likes of Santa Anna and all other power-hungry and dictatorial types who stirred up rebellions in the name of liberty for el pueblo and then exacted from those they had "liberated" a high...