Whereas the general outlines of modernization and subsequent rural conflict in Mexico during the Porfirio Díaz dictatorship (1876 – 1911) are generally known, rigorous case studies of the process are still few. Better-known works on this important topic include Gilbert Joseph’s Revolution from Without (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982) and Allen Wells’s Yucatán’s Gilded Age (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1985) — both of which examine the henequen industry in Yucatán — and William Meyers’s Forge of Progress, Crucible of Revolt (Univ. of New Mexico Press, 1994), which looks at cotton production in the Laguna region. Daniel Nugent’s Spent Cartridges of Revolution (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1993) focuses on land tenure in Chihuahua, while Paul Vanderwood’s The Power of God against the Guns of Government (Stanford Univ. Press, 1996) offers a religious-cultural perspective of the Tomochic uprising, also in Chihuahua.
Emilio Kourí’s A Pueblo Divided adds greatly to our understanding of...
