Forging Mexico: 1821-1835 - Tapa dura

"Anna strongly engages the reader. . . . [Forging Mexico] will be of especial benefit to historians interested in making linkages between historical developments and issues across North America."-American Historical Review * American Historical Review * "It is precisely the forging of the first Mexican federal republic (1824), its creation and decline, which is one of the main objectives of this major revisionist study. . . . Anna stresses the need to make a distinction between what federalism meant in the United States and Canada and what it meant in Mexico. It also becomes crucial to incorporate the full diversity of players in Mexico's history, to analyse the interplay between national and regional history in a federal republic, and to understand fully the significance of the years between 1810 and 1830."-International History Review * International History Review * "Anna's book is not a simple narrative history of Mexico's turbulent first decade of independence. Instead, the author uses the time period as the basis for a highly detailed analysis of federalism as it relates to nation building. Anna offers extensive evidence to show that Mexican federalism and provincialism were deeply rooted in the Spanish colonial system; thus, they came to play a pivotal role in the debate leading to the formation of the newly independent nation."-Choice * Choice * "A provocative study of national identity."-The Historian * The Historian *

No struggle has been more contentious or of longer duration in Mexican national history than that between a centripetal power in the capital and the centrifugal federalism of the Mexican states. Much as they do in the United States, such tensions still endure in Mexico, despite the centralizing effect of the Mexican Revolution of 1910-20.

Timothy E. Anna turns his attention upon the crucial postindependence period of 1821-35 to understand both the theoretical and the practical causes of the development of this polarity. He attempts to determine how much influence can be ascribed to such causes as the model of the United States, the effect of European thinkers, and the shifting self-interest of various leaders and groups in Mexican society. The result is a nuanced and thoughtful analysis of the development of one of the defining characteristics of the Mexican nation: regional power and sovereignty of the state. Forging Mexico, 1821-1835 is a study both of the political history of the first republic and of the struggle to forge nationhood.