The place of travel literature in Mexican historiography remains, for the most part, an unexplored subject. In purely quantitative terms, this literature is rich. Financial incentives, ready accessibility, positive encouragement from various governments, special assignments, and perhaps even a certain alluring mystique have combined to make Mexico somewhat of a Mecca for the foreign traveler. Not a few of these travelers have recorded their impressions. The large majority of these accounts, however, are noteworthy only for gullibility and naivete of authors who, after having spent several hurried weeks covering as much of the country as physically possible, left their insight to posterity. Among the better works three stand out as being particularly valuable: Alexander von Humboldt’s Political Essay on the Kingdom of New Spain, written at the end of the colonial period (1808); Madame Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico, written during the fourth decade of the nineteenth century; and the work presently under consideration, Charles Macomb Flandrau’s Viva Mexico!, written during the first decade of the twentieth century.
Charles Flandrau (1871-1938) was born in Minnesota, traveled in Europe with his family during his youth, and was graduated from Harvard in 1895. His only brother, William Blair McClure Flandrau, owned a coffee plantation in eastern Mexico and between 1903 and 1908 the author spent much of his time with his brother in the Mexican states of Veracruz and Puebla. Viva Mexico! is the product of repeated residence in a restricted area of rural Mexico during the latter stages of the Díaz dictatorship.
Those persons searching for either a scathing censure of the Díaz regime or a vote of approbation will be disappointed for this clearly is not the chore which Flandrau sets for himself. His true feelings about church and state, labor unrest and debt peonage are revealed only incidentally. “In the morality of the masses it [the Church] shows no interest” (p. 92). “Even with . . . an enlightened President . . . Mexico is not a republic but a military Díazpotism” (p. 61). “Their [the peones’] rights are constantly infringed upon in the most obvious and brazen manner” (p. 67). For the most part, however, Flandrau conscientiously refrains from placing value judgments on the daily incidents which surround him. His purpose simply is to describe, a task for which his literary grace equips him admirably.
Flandrau wrote about the things which were of interest to him. Happily these interests are also universal interests. After some 56 years and many editions, Viva Mexico! still stands as one of the most valuable sources on life and society in rural Mexico on the eve of the famous Revolution of 1910. Flandrau’s evaluation of Madame Calderón de la Barca’s Life in Mexico, after more than a half a century, is not an inappropriate tribute to his own work after a similar period of time: “. . . the most entertaining as well as the most essentially true book on Mexico that I have been able to find. . .. Although in sixty-six years many historical things have happened in Mexico . . . one may still read Madame Calderón and verify much that she says simply by glancing out of the window.”
The value of the present edition is enhanced by a useful introductory essay by Professor C. Harvey Gardiner. Teachers of Mexican history may well want to consider this inexpensive edition for classroom purposes.
