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  • The Spirit of Hidalgo: The Mexican Revolution in Coahuila
  • Michael A. Ervin
The Spirit of Hidalgo: The Mexican Revolution in Coahuila. By Suzanne B. Pasztor . Latin American and the Caribbean series. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2002. Maps. Photograph. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index xvi pp. Cloth. $49.95

The historiography of the Mexican Revolution has been dominated by regional studies for some time now. Detailed analyses have focused attention on the states and personalities of Morelos (Emiliano Zapata), Chihuahua (Pancho Villa), Sonora (Alvaro Obregón), Yucatán (Salvador Alvarado), Veracruz (Adalberto Tejeda), and Michoacán (Lázaro Cárdenas), to name a few. Missing from this list is the crucial state of Coahuila, home to arguably the two most important figures of the revolution: Francisco Madero and Venustiano Carranza. The Spirit of Hidalgo aims to fill this gap in the historiography, detailing the experiences of Coahuila before and during the revolution. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Pasztor describes life on the Coahuila frontier, divided into four zones: the Texas border, the central mining areas, the Laguna cotton district, and the capital of Saltillo. Despite their differences, these four zones shared common characteristics that predated the changes wrought during the Porfiriato. Most importantly, Pasztor claims that a "spirit of independence" was "an indelible part of the Coahuilan social landscape" (p. 1 ).

Comprised of "a tradition of local autonomy, political independence, and economic self-sufficiency" (p. 30 ), the "spirit of Hidalgo" lies at the heart of Pasztor's explanation of the Mexican Revolution in Coahuila. In all four zones, political centralization and economic modernization during the Porfiriato undermined local independence and pushed elites, professionals, and popular groups to join Madero's rebellion in its early stages. Over time, however, President Madero lost the support of Coahuilans, due to both the limited nature of his social reforms and the authoritarian methods he employed. Where Madero failed, Venustiano Carranza succeeded—first as governor of Coahuila and later as president of Mexico. While sharing Madero's authoritarian political methods and moderate commitment to social reform, Carranza and his followers took steps to satisfy disgruntled revolutionaries. Carrancistas' labor and agrarian reforms solidified support in Coahuila and laid the foundation for postrevolutionary policy at the national level.

While Pasztor narrates a compelling story, her analysis falls short. Offering important insights into the origins of Maderista authoritarianism and Carrancista populism, her research does not challenge scholars' interpretations of Madero's or Carranza's ideological foundations. More importantly, she fails to address the vast literature on the subject. While briefly dealing with "revisionist" histories of the revolution, she erroneously includes Alan Knight's "populist" study, The Mexican Revolution, among the revisionist camp (p. xvi). Pasztor also passes up the opportunity to engage recent scholarship, particularly the new cultural history that has transcended populist/revisionist debates on revolutionary change and continuity. [End Page 752] Rather than employ new cultural historians' focus on the complex negotiations between political elites and popular groups, Pasztor offers a traditional, top-down approach. Her contention, for example, that "the numerous petitions sent by individual Coahuilans to [Carranza]" proves that "Coahuila's popular and middle classes tended to place their confidence in Carranza" (p. 104 ) reflects the author's rejection of recent trends in the literature. Carrancismo did not triumph in Coahuila solely "because its leader succeeded in mobilizing discontent" (p. 110 ). Rather, popular discontent, it would seem, awakened Carranza to the pitfalls of ignoring the demands of Coahuilans.

The limits of Pasztor's analysis have evidentiary roots. Much of her material comes from secondary sources, especially traditional studies of Madero and Carranza. Where primary evidence abounds, Pasztor's analysis sometimes relies too heavily upon American consular and eyewitness reports and other evidence of dubious reliability. Although some of the sources she has uncovered are excellent (especially those related to the role of the U.S.-Coahuilan border region in financing the Carrancistas' revolution), corroboration in some cases is warranted.

While this study fills an important gap in the historiography of the revolution, it suffers from serious limitations. Its dizzying leaps from regional to national history and back again make this book difficult for anyone but a specialist to follow. At the...

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