Everyday Life and Politics in Nineteenth Century Mexico: Men, Women, and WarIn this new and masterful synthesis, Wasserman shows the link between ordinary men and women-preoccupied with the demands of feeding, clothing, and providing shelter-and the elites' desire for a stable political order and an expanding economy. The three key figures of nineteenth-century Mexico-Antonio Lopez de Santa Ana, Benito Juarez, and Porfirio Diaz-are engagingly reinterpreted. But the emphasis in this book is on the struggle of the common people to retain control over their everyday lives. Concerns central to village life were the appointment of police officials, imposition of taxes on Indians, the trustworthiness of local priests, and changes inland ownership. Communities often followed their leaders into one political camp or another-and even into war-out of loyalty. Excesses in partisan politics and regional antagonisms gave rise to nearly eighty years of war, resulting in the nation's economic stagnation between 1821 and 1880 and the mass migration of women from the countryside to the city. The industrialization of urban employment forever altered gender relations. During wartime, women acted as the supply, transportation, and medical corps of the Mexican armies. Moreover, with greater frequency than has been known, women fought as soldiers in the nineteenth century. This account of Mexico from Independence to the Revolution combines lively explanations of social history, political and economic change, and gender relations. - Publisher. |
Contents
The Age of Troubles | 15 |
Tradition and Turmoil | 22 |
The Politics of Disorder 182145 | 45 |
Copyright | |
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allies Anastasio Bustamante areas army autonomy Benito Juárez boom Bustamante capital central centralists Chihuahua Church civil Coahuila colonial Conservatives Constitution of 1857 corn countryside crucial debt decades defeat Despite Díaz's domestic economic election elites employees everyday expropriation factions factory force foreign French Intervention González Guerrero guerrilla hacendados haciendas henequen hombres de bien Independence Indian industry José Juan Álvarez labor land landholding landowners large number Lerdo Liberals lived lower classes Madero major Maximilian Maya mestizo Mexico City Michoacán middle class military million miners mining camps national government nineteenth century North Americans notables Oaxaca peons percent pesos poor population Porfirian Porfiriato Porfirio Díaz Porfirista president Puebla pulque railroad rebellion rebels Reform Laws regime revenues rural San Luis Potosí Santa Anna sharecroppers soldiers Sonora sought taxes tenants Texas textile took tortillas troops United urban Valentín Gómez Farías Veracruz villages wages wars women workers Yucatán