Here we have another regional building block for the study of the Mexican Revolution, one that is denser and therefore sturdier than some others already in place. In his contribution, William K. Meyers surveys La Comarca Lagunera (which straddles the boundary between the states of Coahuila and Durango) during the Porfiriato and early Revolution, and carefully explains the ways rapid development jostled and rent society, widening old fissures and creating new ones. Political crisis then lit the fuse of rebellion.
The detail he has provided proves that the author has done exemplary research. La Laguna’s uniqueness is competently placed in the context of emerging national affairs, and the sources of the region’s contestations are clearly identified: water rights, foreign economic incursions, growing disparities between rich and poor, political maneuvering, and ferocious entrepreneurial competition, all subject to and occasionally battered by market waves. The major actors in this swirling struggle for power, profit, or just a share of opportunity in the name of social justice are named, although little of their personalities is revealed. There is not much humanism in this historical monograph.
The author’s disciplined elucidation of social, economic, and political conditions in La Laguna before the massive upheaval known as the Revolution is a welcome addition to our knowledge. Meyers’ insights are acute, even if some of his analysis and conceptualization is less rewarding (or perhaps I just disagree with him). First of all, the conditions he describes are marked by an inexorable march to revolution, giving them a sense of inevitability that (to my mind) they do not deserve. Everything that occurred in the region is interpreted in terms of the forthcoming rebellion, as if these happenings, this sort of social environment, must cause revolution, when there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Furthermore, for my taste, Meyers credits the Laguneros with a much-too-critical (even lofty) role in fomenting and nurturing the revolt. That distinction more properly lies with Pascual Orozco and his forces farther north in Chihuahua; the dictator recognized as much by sending a substantial portion of his army there in hopes of suppressing the insurgency.
Further still, the author’s relentless reliance on monolithic class struggle and the so-called contradictions of capitalism to explain social stress seems rather old-fashioned, or perhaps just ho-humish. Anyway, the book totally ignores culture, as if the Laguneros had none of their own that influenced their views and actions. Yet regardless of these matters of viewpoint, Meyers has written a valuable regional study that both enhances and challenges our understanding of Porfirian Mexico.
