1750–1850: La independencia de México a la luz de cien años. Problemáticas y desenlacesde una larga transición. Edited by Brian Connaughton. Mexico City: UniversidadAutónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa/Ediciones del Lirio, 2010. Pp. 604. Notes.Index.

Numerous books and articles were published in 2010 to mark the occasion of thebicentennial of Mexico’s struggle for independence. Most of these works focused onSpanish liberalism and the insurgent war, which triggered the revolution in New Spainbetween 1808 and 1810. The book Brian Connaughton has coordinated is presentedas an exception. Here, the goal is not to explain the independence process but toexplain the longer progression of the Spanish monarchy’s collapse and the difficultcourse of Mexican state-building. For this reason, the book’s chapters deal with topicsdifferent from those just mentioned and different from each other, from conflictbetween royalist authorities and the clergy in the 1790s to the popular mobilization inMexico City in 1840. The result is a book rich in themes and interpretations, useful forunderstanding the period’s various aspects.

Unfortunately, the book also evidences some of the serious problems of edited vol-umes. For example, I do not think that a scholar interested in the question of limpiezade sangre would decide to read this book if it were found in a library catalog, eventhough the chapter by Norma Angélica Castillo Palma on the subject is one of the mostremarkable. Equally, Ana Lidia García Peña’s important study on relations between thestate and families (particularly women) in early nineteenth-century Mexico might belinked with the essay written by Ivana Frasquet on the constitutional project of 1822or with Reynaldo Sordo Cedeño’s work on the ecclesiastical congressmen, but neitherthe editor nor any single author tries to make this relationship explicit.

Despite Connaughton’s aim of paying testimony to the 100-year-long transformation,half the chapters address very specific issues relating to the period 1808–1822. Goingagainst current historical wisdom, Ana Carolina Ibarra demonstrates that in 1809 therewere signs of disloyalty to the Spanish monarchy. Jaime E. Rodríguez O. corrects dataoffered by other historians on the 1809 elections and offers his interpretation ofautonomism. Marta Terán shows the importance of interethnic relations in the con-spiracy of Valladolid of that same year. The chapter written by Luis Fernando Grana-dos represents one of the most original approaches to neoclassical policies during theindependence period. Alicia Tecuanhuey’s account of Juan Nepomuceno Troncoso’spolitical life in Puebla concludes, along with the aforementioned chapters by Frasquetand García Peña, the case studies on the 1808–1822 period. The remaining chaptersfocus on a varied set of topics, though still with relatively narrow chronological focus:the relation between Church and state in the late viceroyalty, as studied by Con-naughton; the survival of cacicazgo in the nineteenth century, addressed by MargaritaMenegus; Castillo Palma’s essay on the proofs of pureza de sangre; Pérez Toledo’sexamination of the popular mobilizations in Mexico City; and Sordo Cedeño’s studyof the ecclesiastical congressmen. Only Jorge Silva Riquer in his comprehensive analy-sis of the historiography of economy and Brian Connaughton in the introduction studythe period 1750–1850 in its entirety.

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It has been asserted in recent years that the historiography on Independence has reachedconsensus on a number of issues. Most evidently, it seems to have been determined thatthe Latin American nations were the result of the dissolution of the Spanish monarchybut not its cause. Connaughton’s introduction finds some cracks: while he recognizesthat the cultural wealth of New Spain “did not translate easily into an ethnic identity,much less in a (proto) national [one]” (pp. 15–16), he assures us that some kind of“national identity” was forged in New Spain between 1521 and 1808. Furthermore, hecontends that in the late seventeenth century various realms or “proto-States” (seeHorst Pietschmann, pp. 14–15) were consolidated in Spanish America. Hierarchical net-works of cities, villages, and pueblos, religion, and guadalupanismo were among the keyelements of New Spain’s identity, although these would not necessarily lead to inde-pendence, since a shared political culture in Spain and America still favored unity withthe metropolis, even after 1808. According to Connaughton, the 1812 Constitution ofCádiz allowed consolidated autonomous realms under the monarchy (p. 28). Never-theless, war and other transformations propelled by liberalism caused the provinces toclaim their own rights. This was the start of state-building, an exercise that would notend until decades after independence was obtained. Connaughton’s interpretation isdebatable. For example, the Constitution of Cadiz did not give rights, as he suggests, tothe “American realms.” In fact, it recognized the Spanish nation as one, indivisible king-dom. Even so, his contribution serves to question the alleged consensus and keep theseissues open for debate. This can only be a good thing.

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México ALFREDO AVILA

Mexico City, Mexico

Funerals, Festivals, and Cultural Politics in Porfirian Mexico. By Matthew D. Esposito.Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2010. Pp. xvi, 332. Appendices.Notes. Bibliography. Index.

Cemeteries, death ceremonials, and rituals of remembrance during the Porfirio Díazregime (1876–1911) are examined in this carefully researched book. Esposito drawsupon numerous primary and secondary sources to study the importance of commem-oration, invocation, memory, and imagination in the forging of national history, iden-tity, and modernity during this era.. According to the author, the ceremonials and rit-uals that surrounded death—a constant and pervasive reminder of the precarious dailystruggle for survival of most Mexicans—became increasingly modernized, profession-alized, and monopolized in tandem with the centralization and complex culturalprocesses of legitimization also characteristic of the period. Esposito also examines theways in which national holidays, funerals, and other commemorations led to the appro-priation of religious and cultural traditions surrounding the rituals of death by the sec-ular state. He also looks at how the exhumation, reburial, and incorporation of asteadily increasing number of national heroes (above all, male national heroes) pro-moted a shared sense of the past and ultimately shaped it, thereby permitting Díaz toremain in power for as long as he did.

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