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Book Reviews 133 Indians in nearby Santiago Atitlan, the army attempted to revive the policy of compulsory military reserve service for all men aged eighteen to thirty. Outraged at this prospect, the people of San Jose La Laguna demanded a meeting with the military. When the army representatives gathered at the town basketball court, the men, women and children greeted them with shouts of ‘‘assassins” and “kidnappers” and drowned out their speeches with noisemakers (174). The military officials left without receiving a list of men eligible for military reserve service and the townspeople proceeded to sign a declaration rejecting the creation of a voluntary military reserve force. With the civil war winding down in the 1990s, cultural revitalization emerges as a new theme in the diary. Several fascinating examples of traditional and modem religious practices occur throughout the book and Bizarro Ujpan’s position as alcalde of the cojkadia of San Juan Bautista is especially influential in this regard. The greatest strength of Joselio: Another Mayan Voice Speaks ,f;.oin Giratemala is its bottom-up approach and vivid description of the human condition in rural Guatemala from 1987-1998. This life history will be of interest and value to scholars from a variety of disciplines in the liberal arts and social sciences including anthropologists, historians, sociologists, and political scientists. The book will also appeal to general readers interested in contemporary Guatemala. Finally, it should be noted that Ignacio Bizarro Ujpan is not the real name of the author nor does he reside in San JosC La Laguna. The names were changed to protect his privacy. Mark Thoinason Te.uas Christian University Vinson, Ben 111. Bearing Armsfor His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. In a special issue of The Anzericas in October 2000, Matthew Restall and Jane Landers introduced a new generation of scholars studying African experiences in Spanish America. The flurry of activity in this field, as they described it, continues with the publication of Vinson’s dissertation on New Spain’s free-colored militias. By providing the first comprehensive analysis of this institution, Vinson gleans fresh insights into the lives of New Spain’s peoples of African descent. Ile adds an important dimension to understanding patterns of social mobility, how free-colored people shaped definitions of their place in society through the parameters of militia duty and how their experiences influenced broader casta society. Vinson considers how militia service affected notions of identity in relation to status, privilege and race. Bearing Armsfor His Majesty places Vinson in the historiography of the SELA Sutritiiet-/Fcill 200-? class versus caste debate about the role the caste system played in social and race relations. While he adds to the works on casta society by historians John K. Chance, William B. Taylor, and R. Douglas Cope, among others, Vinson also deals with other topics of scholarly interest. He discusses how Spaniards defended their colonial possessions and how far, in practice, Spanish rule conformed to its vision of a hierarchical and orderly society. Vinson’s detailed and meticulous research has much to commend, particularly his attention to a multiplicity of sources that admit a variety of perspectives. The first part of the book, an exhaustive analysis of the institution, makes use of a vast amount of archival materials, especially civil, military and criminal sources. Vinson uses accounts generated by competing members of the Spanish elite, its bureaucracy and free-colored peoples themselves to present a vivid portrait of the institution. Vinson has traced the course of individual lives, placing the meanings of militia service and the opportunities that came with it in personal terms. The reader encounters a series of characters, like Colonel Francisco Manuel Suarez, whose eagerness to profit financially from militia service reveals much about the place and of militia service in local society and the internal operating dynamics of militias. The inclusion of these militiamen in their dealings with public officials does much to help invigorate the institutional analysis. Vinson’s research benefits from careful attention to context and to regional differences. He qualifies his analysis, pointing out and explaining exceptions so that interpretations seem rounded and convincing. This research effectively lays the...

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