Revolution in Mexico's Heartland

Politics, War, and State Building in Puebla, 1913–1920

David G. LaFrance

This carefully researched and richly detailed case study explores the most violent phase of the Mexican Revolution in the key state of Puebla. This book explains the tension between the forces that represented the modernizing centralized state and those who revolted and chose local autonomy. Because of its industry, resources, transportation, and large population during the Revolution, Puebla provides an excellent measuring stick for the rest of the nation during this conflict. This diverse region is perhaps as closely representative as any Mexican state because of its indigenous, mestizo, and criollo peoples, its industrial, commercial, and subsistence workers, its urban and rural populations, and both strong Catholic and zealous anti-clerical groups.

David G. LaFrance examines politics, warfare, and state building within the context of autonomy, as well as the military, political, and economic changes that occurred in the name of the Revolution. LaFrance also links events at the state level to those of the nation and localities.

Puebla's residents opposed the changes imposed from the outside by the armies of Venustiano Carranza. The concept of autonomy and the degree of resistance of the many groups in Puebla varied, thus leading to limited accommodation with the Carrancistas. LaFrance explains that this compromise provided the means by which the Carrancistas eventually won the wars in Puebla and began the process of creating a new political culture and governing mechanism.

Revolution in Mexico's Heartland is an authoritative text on the Revolution in Puebla until 1920. This book is an invaluable source for readers interested in the history of Mexico and the Mexican Revolution.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 334 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-0-7425-5600-3 • Paperback • August 2007 • $63.00 • (£48.00)

Series: Latin American Silhouettes

Subjects: History / Latin America / Mexico, History / Revolutionary

Revolution in Mexico's Heartland

Politics, War, and State Building in Puebla, 1913–1920

Paperback

Summary

This carefully researched and richly detailed case study explores the most violent phase of the Mexican Revolution in the key state of Puebla. This book explains the tension between the forces that represented the modernizing centralized state and those who revolted and chose local autonomy. Because of its industry, resources, transportation, and large population during the Revolution, Puebla provides an excellent measuring stick for the rest of the nation during this conflict. This diverse region is perhaps as closely representative as any Mexican state because of its indigenous, mestizo, and criollo peoples, its industrial, commercial, and subsistence workers, its urban and rural populations, and both strong Catholic and zealous anti-clerical groups.

David G. LaFrance examines politics, warfare, and state building within the context of autonomy, as well as the military, political, and economic changes that occurred in the name of the Revolution. LaFrance also links events at the state level to those of the nation and localities.

Puebla's residents opposed the changes imposed from the outside by the armies of Venustiano Carranza. The concept of autonomy and the degree of resistance of the many groups in Puebla varied, thus leading to limited accommodation with the Carrancistas. LaFrance explains that this compromise provided the means by which the Carrancistas eventually won the wars in Puebla and began the process of creating a new political culture and governing mechanism.

Revolution in Mexico's Heartland is an authoritative text on the Revolution in Puebla until 1920. This book is an invaluable source for readers interested in the history of Mexico and the Mexican Revolution.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 334 • Trim: 6 x 8¾

978-0-7425-5600-3 • Paperback • August 2007 • $63.00 • (£48.00)

Series: Latin American Silhouettes

Subjects: History / Latin America / Mexico, History / Revolutionary

Author

David G. LaFrance is research professor of history at the Benemérita Universidad Autònoma de Puebla, Mexico.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part I: Huertismo
Chapter 1: Politics, 1913–1914
Chapter 2: Economic and Social Policy
Chapter 3: War, 1913–1914
Part II: Constitucionalistas versus Convencionistas
Chapter 4: War, 1914–1917
Chapter 5: Politics, 1914–1917
Chapter 6: Economic and Social Policy, 1914–1917
Part III: Carrancismo
Chapter 7: Politics, 1917–1920
Chapter 8: Economic and Social Policy, 1917–1920
Chapter 9: War, 1917–1920
Chapter 10: Regime Ends, State Continues
Conclusion
Bibliography

Reviews

In this comprehensive, impressively researched study, LaFrance examines and analyzes the complex changes brought by the Mexican Revolution to the state of Puebla. Recommended.
— Choice Reviews

Revolution in Mexico's Heartland meticulously examines the struggle for local autonomy in both the countryside and the cities.
— The Historian

The research behind this work is vast and exhaustive. LaFrance has scoured newspapers and archives, leaving no page unturned. The result is a well-written, well-organized (with good subheadings), and incredibly detailed vision of political factions and squabbles in Puebla between 1913 and 1920.
— American Historical Review

A carefully researched and detailed study of the most violent phase of Mexican Revolution in the key state of Puebla. This book explains the tension between the forces that represented the modernizing centralized state and those who revolted and chose local autonomy.
— Hispanic Outlook

A very good book, one of the best histories of the Mexican Revolution ever on the state and local levels, where it was most significant. Based on research in fifty-four archives, the book is thorough, solid, and judicious. Considering the complexity and importance of the state of Puebla, it is wonderfully clear as well. This volume's argument will interest and enlighten all historians of the Revolution and any student who seriously wants to learn what the Revolution meant.
— John Womack Jr., Harvard University

A lucidly written, comprehensive study of the Mexican Revolution in the state of Puebla, where agrarian, liberal, labor, and serrano movements intersected with national revolutionary factions seeking to control and subdue this historically strategic region. If any romantic illusions linger as to the Revolution's 'good guys,' this book buries them with dispassionate empirical and analytical rigor and sympathy for the human compromises made in times of fratricidal warfare and mounting scarcity. The study is also essential for those interested in postrevolutionary state formation.
— Mary Kay Vaughan, University of Maryland, College Park; author of Cultural Politics in Revolution

David LaFrance's study provides us with an outstanding description and analysis of the second military phase of the Revolution and of the earliest years of the postrevolutionary Mexican state in Puebla, a region at the center of contending old regime and revolutionary powers.
— Linda B. Hall, University of New Mexico

David LaFrance has written an important history of the Mexican Revolution. His painstaking and in-depth research reveals the complexity of the Revolution and its regional variations. This book is must reading for Mexican historians.
— John Mason Hart, University of Houston

Regional history at its very best. After Revolution in Mexico's Heartland, historians of the Mexican Revolution at the regional and national levels will have to rethink the idea of the popular, grassroots revolution and reexamine the anti-paradigm of local and regional autonomy and defensive rebellion.
— Thomas Benjamin, Central Michigan University