The Sonoran Dynasty in Mexico: Revolution, Reform, and Repression Available to Purchase

This is a solid and substantial book that charts the history of the “Sonoran dynasty”—the camarilla of powerful políticos who, emerging from the great upheaval of the Mexican Revolution (in which they played a notable military role), dominated the government of the country during the 1920s and early 1930s, supplying four presidents, including the crucial duo (or “duarchy,” as Buchenau calls them) Álvaro Obregón and Plutarco Elías Calles. The book culminates Jürgen Buchenau's productive research in this field, which includes two previous biographies (of the “duarchy”). Here he reprises the careers of the big two, interweaving them with the stories of the lesser Sonorans: among others, the amiably dissolute Francisco Serrano, victim of the internecine Huitzilac massacre of 1927; Adolfo de la Huerta, who receives a charitable write-up, his downward political trajectory being attributed, not altogether convincingly, to his dogged democratic—“Maderista”—convictions (p. 308); and Abelardo Rodríguez, who is rightly seen...