Community, citizenship and the maligned state in modernising mexico

Abstract

The fashion for ‘subaltern studies’ has taken researchers back to the archive and field in search of social agents both marginalised and forgotten. In Mexico this has entailed an exacting task of reconstructing the lives of Indians and peasants on the remote frontiers of state influence. The books reviewed here are worthy examples of this project. They offer illuminating glimpses of the ways in which such semi‐autonomous societies experienced the extension of state rule as modern Mexico emerged painfully as a nation. If they are to be faulted it is in the emphasis they place on ‘the People's’ resistance to assimilation, implicitly heroic, whilst casting a rather contemporary light, often explicitly pejorative, on to the efforts of those other agents whose efforts were directed at the creation of a uniform citizenship. Wandering Peoples: Colonialism, Ethnic Spaces, and Ecological Frontiers in Northwestern Mexico, 1700–1850, by Cynthia Radding. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1997. Pp.xx + 403. £57.50 (hardback); £17.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8223 1907 1 and 1899 7 Thread of Blood: Colonialism, Revolution, and Gender on Mexico's Northern Frontier, by Ana Maria Alonso. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1995. Pp.xi + 303. $45 (hardback); $19.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8165 1511 5 and 1574 3 Cultural Politics in Revolution: Teachers, Peasants, and Schools in Mexico, 1930–40, by Mary Kay Vaughan. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press, 1997. Pp.xiii + 262. $45 (hardback); $17.95 (paperback). ISBN 0 8165 1675 8 and 1676 6