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Heartland of the Americas
Mexican history has it all. What is today Mexico was one of the world's great centers of original food production, the domestication of plants from corn to tomatoes to chocolate. Its unique modern cuisine stands as a reminder of this ancient heritage. Partly as a result of these nutritional resources, central Mexico was decidedly the most densely populated place in the Americas in 1492. The European invasion and conquest of Mexico constitutes an epic story that has most often been told as a fable of European superiority or Spanish iniquity. However it is told, it is unquestionably central to global history, a key moment in the expansion of European imperialism. By 1800, "New Spain" (as Mexico was then called) had become Spain's most precious imperial jewel, producing much of its colonial revenue. Mexico's struggle for independence garnered the most explosive popular participation in America, in Hidalgo's 1810 uprising, and had one of the most conservative outcomes. Its nineteenth-century was among the most turbulent, including the fleeting reigns of two Mexican emperors, a full-scale French invasion, and a war of national resistance, as well as many civil conflicts. Then Mexico underwent the very apogee, the text-book example, of a law-and-order dictatorship that attracted international capital and oversaw export growth in a neocolonial mode: the thirty-year rule of Porfirio Diaz. Next, Mexican history really got interesting with the advent of the twentieth century's first great social revolution in 1910, followed by three decades of political experimentation and recurrent popular mobilizations for, and against, it. No wonder about half of all U.S. historians of Latin America focus on Mexico.
Any place of such ancient and abundant human habitation is complexly regionalized. To get a basic "fix" on Mexico, however, a simple tripartite scheme will do. The central highlands of Mexico, site of Mexico City, compose the first region. This high mountain plateau (or rather, series of them) produced waves of ambitious empire-builders before the Spanish arrived, and the European newcomers made it the center of their own imperial project, partly because they valued its cool climate. As a result, the population of the central highlands is, in most places, markedly mestizo. Southern Mexico, in contrast, is more strongly indigenous. This region is home to the majority of Mexicans who speak indigenous languages, for example. In addition, southern Mexico, much of which is densely mountainous, has had a somewhat troubled relationship with the center. Famously aloof from the rest of Mexico, the Yucatán peninsula was the scene of tenacious indigenous resistance to the Mexican state for much of the 1800s. Chiapas, a former Guatemalan province that joined Mexico only in the 1820s, is the location of today's Zapatista insurgency. Indices of development in the south are the lowest of the three regions. The north, as so often happens, is commonly viewed as the south's rough opposite. In the common Mexican stereotype, the north is the "whitest" part of the country, the newest part of ancient Mexico. Silver mining was the first activity to draw more population into the North, but eventually the main economic attractions of the region became associated with the United States. Railroads, mining enterprises, cattle, and eventually agriculture and manufacturing connected northern Mexico to the United States. Northerners, it may be said, both launched and won the Mexican Revolution of 1910. The principal northern city, Monterrey, became a center of steel production. Economic opportunities attracted inflows of capital and people. In 1999, the first successful challenge to the "dinosaurs" of the Institutional Revolutionary Party was lead by a northerner from Monterrey with a non-Spanish surname, Fox.
Topics:
Themes:
Questions for Analysis and Further Reflection:
- What power structures governed pre-Columbian societies in Mexico, and how did Spaniards capitalize on these throughout the process of colonization? How does the story of the encounter in Mexico compare with the Caribbean or in different regions of South America?
- How did the regional differences play into Mexico's turbulent nineteenth century? What questions of race fueled or were affected by the many wars its inhabitants faced throughout the century?
- The twentieth century saw the love-hate relationship between Mexico and the U.S. become more deeply entrenched on both sides of the border. How have the neoliberal years and NAFTA continued this storyline into the new century or bucked the trend?
Country Bibliography: (Titles with ** are good starting places.)
There are many good general histories of Mexico in English, more than on any other Latin
American country. Below are some of the most recent and useful for undergraduate students.
Burke, Michael. Mexico: An Illustrated History. New York: Hippocrene Books, 1999.
As the title indicates, this historical survey offers what many lack: a wealth of illustrations—
paintings, photographs of nineteenth-century railroads and of soldiers during the Mexican
Revolution, and so on.
Fehrenbach, T. R. Fire and Blood: A History of Mexico, updated ed. New York: Da Capo
Press, 1995.
A thorough and clear, but quite lengthy, narrative overview.
** Hamnett, Brian. A Concise History of Mexico. Cambridge Concise Histories. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Packed with detail conveyed in clear prose, students will find this history of Mexico to be one of the most useful. Illustrations, maps, a bibliography organized thematically and chronologically, and an index complement the narrative.
** Kirkwood, Burton. The History of Mexico. The Greenwood Histories of the Modern Nations.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.
Clearly written and readily available. A historical timeline, section on "notable people" in Mexican history, bibliographic essay, and an index complement the narrative.
Meyer, Michael C., and William H. Beezley, eds. The Oxford History of Mexico. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2000.
A reader-friendly collection of historical essays allows students to target their reading to suit their interests. Photos, detailed maps, a bibliography, and an index are included.
Meyer, Michael C., and William L. Sherman. The Course of Mexican History, 5th ed. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
A narrative text on Mexican history written with undergraduates in mind. Numerous illustrations and maps are interspersed throughout the text, and each chapter is followed by a list of suggested further readings in English. An index is included.
Pilcher, Jeffrey M., ed. The Human Tradition in Mexico. The Human Tradition Around the
World, 6. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2003.
As part of a collection that focuses on history "from the bottom up," this volume focuses on individual people and ranges from the 1700s to the influence of contemporary neoliberalism. Written with the undergraduate in mind, each essay ends with a list of suggested readings. An index is included.
Ruiz, Ramón Eduardo. Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People. New York:
Norton, 1992.
An engaging, though lengthy, narrative history of Mexico from a Mexican perspective. A bibliography organized by theme and an index are included.
Shorris, Earl. The Life and Times of Mexico. New York: Norton, 2004.
A creative narrative of Mexican history that catches the reader's attention from the start, which is important, because it is close to 750 pages long and not easy to skip around in. Maps, a photo essay, and an index are included.
Suchlicki, Jaime. Mexico: From Montezuma to the Fall of the PRI, 2nd ed. Washington, DC:
Brassey's, 2001.
A manageable overview. Informative illustrations, a list of suggested readings, and an index are included.
Maps:
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