The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750–1850 by Peter Guardino (review)

The Latin Americanist, Spring 2007 with a protagonist who tries to conform, to subvert his true nature, albeit a violent one, in the name of love, but instead he becomes more ”twisted” and thus more ”irascible and inhuman than ever” (5). While flirting with necrophilia, ”Del otro lado” confronts these contradictions, weighing the desirability of penance versus indulgence. The story opens with a man describing a beautiful woman. He reveals that he is a philanderer, but the woman also finds him attractive. In this vignette, Gonzalez suggests that the man may suffer for his transgressions, but the woman, who appears to be a mortician, seems to be allowed to indulge hers. After ”Del otro lado,” the stories become increasingly surreal. Gonzalez engages in a metaphorical shredding of boundaries between fiction and poetry and, like a modern-day Poe, her characters claw at the bricks of the sepulcher. The culminating piece, ”Confabulaciones en la Casa Mayor,” is longer, but its form is even less conventional. Its first-person narrative is told in a dead-pan voice like that of a film noire detective, but while the narrator maintains an even tone throughout the story it becomes frantic when it reaches its Twilight Zone ending in which the roles reverse and the reader receives final confirmation that in Miradas, Gonzalez-Hernandez is asserting that sometimes it is necessary to go against the norm, to follow one’s instincts even if it means breaking the tenets of faith. Esperanza Malave‘Cintron Department of English Wayne County Community College District THE TIME OF LIBERTY: POPULAR POLITICAL CULTURE I N OAXACA, 1750-1850. BYPETER GUARDINO. DURHAM: DUKE UP, 2005, P. 405, $23.95. Building on his much appreciated study of nineteenth-century Guerrero, historian Peter Guardino turns his gaze to the state of Oaxaca where he compares the changing political culture of the city of Antequera (nowOaxaca) with the neighboring rural district of Villa Alta during the late colonial and early republican periods. Scrutinizing a wealth of documentary evidence as well asa mountain of secondary literature, the author argues that the influence of the Enlightenment and Bourbon Reforms, in combination with the ideals embodied in the struggle for independence, impacted not only elites but also subaltern groups. As Enlightenment thought gained currency in elite and middle class circles throughout the Atlantic world, efforts to reform -and ultimately radically restructure -Mexico’s political culture made critical the cooperation of urban plebeians and indigenous peasants. Yet not only did political change initiated from above necessitate the coordination of commoners, it also generated a myriad of grassroots responses. Through diligent archival work examining contemporary newspapers, hundreds of individual cases of conflict over resources, honor, and other everyday concerns, Guardino Book Reviews argues over the course of six chapters that both urban and rural popular groups underwent a major change in consciousness. Writing of the region that would eventually give rise to an important generation of mid-nineteenth century Liberals including Benito Juarez (whom the author discusses in a brief, albeit refreshing new perspective), Guardino’s thesis maintains that, while not always predictable, the way in which Oaxaca’s popular classes ”acted and spoke politically changed in important ways” (287). Like many concerned with the terms by which elites and popular groups negotiate, Guardino works carefully in the shadow of Antonio Gramsci as he considers the question of hegemony inthe Mexicanregional context. Uniquely bridging the late colonial and early national period, he asks somewhat of a different question than other scholars in writing, “what happens when the basic justifications of the ruling order shift? (7). Here Guardino contends that many before him have been ”concerned less with the aftermath of colonialism.. . [as] they [have tended to] stress the continuity of domination, arguing that native elites replace colonial elites but replicate colonial systems of power” (8). In contrast, the author makes careful use of his documentary base to probe changing popular political consciousness over time in the larger context of hegemonic transformation from above. In this, Guardino makes it clear from the start that he wisely seeks not an awareness of subaltern beliefs (alas, a matter to remain largely unfathomable) but of how common people appropriated the discourse of elite...