The message of this hefty edited collection is that nineteenth-century centralism in Mexico did not have a promising beginning or a happy ending. Each contributor addresses a specific Mexican state in 1835–46, the period of the central republic. This is one of the chapters of Mexico's national history most in need of further research. It was a period of varied attempts by myriad actors to overcome deficiencies in the structural and constitutional makeup of the federal republic of 1824, all of which failed. The primary problem with the 1824 constitution was that it did not get the right balance between federal and state authority, creating a weak, inadequately financed national government and overly strong states that were defined as sovereign. It would take decades for political leaders to recognize that their objective should be to create not so much a perfect union as a workable one.
The 20 essays in...
