The Human Tradition in Mexico (review)

This is a clever book well suited for use at the undergraduate level. It consists of 15 biographical vignettes that connect individual lives to the major historical trends of their eras. The book succeeds well on its own terms. Given that students tend to respond favorably to biography, it will be an effective teaching tool, especially when used in conjunction with other sources providing more depth on economic, political and social history. The book is also a useful introduction to a new generation of historians working on various aspects of Mexican cultural history. It is divided into four sections arranged in chronological order, corresponding to the years 1750-1850, 1850-1910, 1910-1940, and 1940 to the present. Within each section, specialists in a particular region and era have chosen individuals whose lives reveal important trends and tendencies. Historians who tend to see the limitations of biography should balance this valid concern with an appreciation of its appeal to the general public, including undergraduate students in introductory courses.

Each chapter begins with a discussion of a Mexico City metro stop in some way related to the individual examined. This is an intriguing way of demonstrating how various pasts are represented in the present. Indeed, the choice of the Mexico City framework reveals a tendency of the current cultural history of Mexico, as practiced in the United States. With some notable exceptions, the entries in this book emphasize urban and non-indigenous experiences. The reasons for these choices are concisely laid out in Jeffrey Pilcher's excellent introduction, which situates recent scholarship within the existing historiography of Mexico.

All of the biographies are engaging and well written, demonstrating a careful process of selection and composition. Reasons of space preclude commenting in detail on each biography, though they were all enjoyable to read. A general sense for the volume can be gained by a brief overview of each section. Section I examines the era from 1750-1850 through the lives of Josefa Ordóñez, Fray Servando Teresa de Mier and Lucas Balderas. In this section, Linda A. Curcio-Nagy, Karen Racine and Pedro Santini demonstrate colonial patterns of honor, gender and sexuality while revealing the complicated ideology of independence and subsequent nineteenth-century liberal and conservative struggles, all on the level of individual lives. Section II takes us from the mid-nineteenth century through 1910. This section achieves a nice balance of quirky individuals and elite/popular social strata. David Coffey and Eugenia Roldán Vera introduce us to Agnes Salm-Salm, an American woman who married a German prince and ended up in Maximillian's court, as legend has it using all available means of persuasion to plead for the Emperor's life. Patrick McNamara provides the sole entry on the complex dynamics of rural and indigenous life. He examines the experience of Felipe García, a Zapotec Indian from the village of Guelato, Oaxaca, also home to the more famous nineteenth-century President, Benito Juárez. Glenn David Kuecker and Susie S. Porter complete the journey through the worlds of late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century liberalism and conservatism via the lives of the científico Alejandro Prieto and the radical liberal Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza.

Section III analyzes the lives of individuals living through the revolutionary years of 1910-1940. William E. French unravels the fragile and dangerous world of courtship through an analysis of Chihuahuan love letters between a couple known only as Pedro and Enriqueta. Sarah Buck explores women's participation in the revolution and early twentieth-century feminism in Mexico through the life of Rosa Torres González. Anne Rubenstein provides an intriguing journey through the artistic world by tracing the at times stormy life of the artist and model Nahui Olin, born as Carmen Mondragón. This section concludes with Enrique C. Ochoa's examination of the life of Lic. Mois&eacute...