In his Concise History of Mexico, Jan Bazant has elected to confine himself to 215 pages on the national period of Mexican history. Instead of writing a definitive work or a book marked by new and provocative interpretations, he has stitched together an essentially political history compiled from some of the very best recently published studies. Acknowledging the appearance of many monographs “emphasizing, in accordance with the prevailing trend, social and economic developments,” Bazant has attempted here a synthesis focusing on:
the dominant, central, themes of Mexican history: The struggle for land on the part of those who do not possess it at all or do not possess it in sufficient quantity to satisfy their basic needs; the striving for land and status on the part of merchants and politicians; and the striving on the part of land-owning families to preserve their position on the social pyramid (p. ix).
Whether he has accomplished his synthesis is debatable given the political emphasis of the book. What is even more important, however, is whether Bazant’s objective does constitute the “dominant, central theme of Mexican history.” Historians of Mexico, like geographers, seem to be fascinated by the study of land to the exclusion of other significant themes.
Bazant’s book is a well-written survey of the national period of Mexican history to 1940. There are commendable pieces such as a succinct explanation of how the Ley Lerdo worked, and Bazant places in proper context Clark Reynolds’ exposition of the role of export crops in the Díaz debacle. Still, this book could have been much better. Most of the major events from 1800 to 1940 are touched upon, although a few, for example, the Cristero revolt and the expropriation of petroleum producers, receive surprisingly short shrift. The discussion of positivism (and social Darwinism) and of organized labor during the Porfiriato are too perfunctory. While the reader gets a panoramic view of Mexico’s history with several enlightening closeups, many more explanations are needed for the uninitiated. Some events, such as the 1846 war with the United States, are literally blurred by having been embedded in a matrix of discussion of other matters and lack analysis and commentary. Some topics are subjected to a desultory historiographic exposition—we are given a discussion but no resolution of the enigma of Iturbide, Guerrero and the writing of the Plan de Iguala— while others occasion only a flabby interpretative remark as in the case of a pedantic discussion of Obregon’s decision to run again in 1928 and the significance of such decisions in Mexican history. Even in the pivotal matter of “the striving on the part of land-owning families to preserve their position on the social pyramid,” Bazant often leaves us with more questions than he answers. He does not dissect the socioeconomic structure of upper-class society in the nineteenth century and how it expressed itself politically: the meaning of the concepts “liberal” and “conservative” is never made clear. Nor does Bazant consider the significance of the successes of Santa Anna, Mexico’s “clown prince,” but sees him as the man after whom “the Age of Santa Anna” is named. (These days, can a reader help but raise an eyebrow at chapters entitled, “Age of . . .”?) Agioistas and government finance, as well as caudillos and the army, are too far back in the shadows: how were they integrated into the functioning of Mexican life?
Despite their position as Bazant’s guiding principles, the synthesis of the pattern of land possession with the social conflict engendered by the system of exploitation of the earth as the dominant theme in Mexican history does not explain many important events and movements. It is patently old fashioned today to consider the peasant’s land hunger as the root of the Revolution of 1910 or the determinant of its course for the following sixty-five years. Neither the importance of the rise of the national bourgeoisie nor the 100-year old drive toward industrialization can be easily discounted. And certainly the influence of the army and of the urban centers and their resident social classes has always been a major one. Despite the importance of the land question in Mexican history (an importance exaggerated by Bazant’s cutoff date of 1940), years ago the center of national interest began to shift to the cities and their myriad activities. We must now recognize the historical importance of the move toward national modernization. The Ley Lerdo and the land and irrigation laws of the Porfiriato gain a new and different importance as Mexico’s equivalent of the enclosure acts in driving people to the cities. The real significance of Cárdenas may be found in his imaginative use of government control of finance and the fostering of industrialization and popular nationalism. Given Mexico’s recent history, we need a new historical synthesis with a broad social science base to secure a meaningful understanding of the significance of past events.