On the first page of his monumental biography of Lucas Alamán, Eric Van Young admits that the historian, politician, and entrepreneur—exceptionally intelligent but haughty, severe, and inscrutable—cuts a rather lackluster figure among the swashbuckling generals (Antonio López de Santa Anna), adventurous clergymen (Fray Servando Teresa de Mier), and romantic Liberals intent on saving the world (Valentín Gómez Farías, Lorenzo de Zavala) who made up Mexico's founding generation. Historians have, apparently, felt as put off by Alamán as did many of his contemporaries. Despite his looming large over the first decades of Mexico's postindependence history, we have, perhaps with the exception of José C. Valadés's solid 1938 biography, but snippets of Alamán's life and work, partial (in both senses of the word) images of an eventful existence: that of Mexican conservatism's sinister éminence grise, born reactionary and intolerant; the forward-looking architect of Mexico's first development bank; the nostalgic chronicler of Mexico's...

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