Mexico: Biogaphy of Power
Books / Hardcover
Books › History › Latin America › Mexico
ISBN: 0060163259 / Publisher: Harper, May 1997
Shows how history becomes biography and the integral role of Mexico's leaders in the events of the nineteenth century, explores the seven presidents of the revolutionary era of 1910-1940, and examines the nation's modern presidency
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The concentration of power in the caudillo (leader) is as much a formative element of Mexican culture and politics as the historical legacy of the Aztec emperors, Cortez, the Spanish Crown, the Mother Church and the mixing of the Spanish and Indian population into a mestizo culture. Krauze shows how history becomes biography during the century of caudillos from the insurgent priests in 1810 to Porfirio and the Revolution in 1910. The Revolutionary era, ending in 1940, was dominated by the lives of seven presidents -- Madero, Zapata, Villa, Carranza, Obregon, Calles and Cardenas. Since 1940, the dominant power of the presidency has continued through years of boom and bust and crisis. A major question for the modern state, with today's president Zedillo, is whether that power can be decentralized, to end the cycles of history as biographies of power.
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