Independent Mexico

As the concluding volume of a four-part study of pronunciamientos (forceful negotiations), Independent Mexico is a fitting capstone to nearly two decades of prolific research and publication on the topic. Will Fowler expertly mines the existing literature and a massive database at the University of St. Andrews—a significant portion of which he has shaped—to create a work that is both conceptually ambitious and cohesive. He navigates several historiographical currents along the way, notably augmenting a line of thinking that has been developed by Jaime Rodríguez O. Much more than a compilation of greatest hits, Independent Mexico makes the case for a narrative history that reappraises the role of violence and charismatic caudillos as the driving forces behind national politics in early nineteenth-century Mexico.Whereas Fowler has claimed elsewhere that pronunciamientos are the best way to understand Mexico's early political history, here he sets out to determine how they spread. Via extensive analysis of declarations published between 1821 and 1858, he develops the concept of mimetic insurrectionism, which he defines as “a natural tendency on the part of people in a context of acute social injustice, political oppression, and/or economic as well as racial inequality to replicate—mimic—insurrectionary tactics from elsewhere if these are seen to have worked” (p. 40). As such, the very success of Rafael del Riego's 1820 pronunciamiento in Spain created a template that was adapted by Agustín de Iturbide to bring about independence in Mexico in 1821. The realization of that forceful negotiation's goals engendered further cycles of pronunciamientos and their associated constellations of actas de adhesión (copycat declarations of allegiance). As opposed to a coup d'état or calls for revolution, a pronunciamiento was more politically palatable and durable because it claimed to represent the broader interests of a given community and did not necessarily call for the violent overthrow of the existing regime so long as other political or social demands were met.There is much that is compelling about Fowler's approach. His quantitative data and focused analysis of key pronunciamientos reveal the ideological flexibility and increasingly democratic potential of such forceful negotiations. What was wielded in the 1820s as the relatively limited tool of military men in support of federalist and anti-Spanish agendas expanded greatly in the 1830s as a practice to accommodate pro-Catholic and centralist platforms. Over time, civilians acting alone or in concert with military men increasingly shaped the contours of these plans. Fowler also recognizes the role of pronunciamientos—which amplified threats of violence during the polarized domestic politics of the 1840s and 1850s, even in the face of foreign invasion in 1846 and 1847—in giving rise to the destructive civil wars of the 1850s and 1860s. Such patterns in the deployment of pronunciamientos provide an effective shorthand for the history of the first 30 years of independent Mexico.There are, however, potential shortcomings to such an all-encompassing concept, which Fowler more or less mitigates throughout the text. He regularly contrasts the pronunciamiento with other notable revolutions and coups d'état in order to prevent the blurring of lines between categories of rebellion. He further categorizes pronunciamientos based on their geographic reach, concern with national affairs, and success or failure. Since most of the forceful negotiations highlighted by Fowler are national in scope, he leaves the relationship between these declarations and local pronunciamientos largely unexamined. For example, he clearly identifies instances in which indigenous communities deployed similar templates for negotiation but stops short of tracing the lineage of pronunciamientos across all social sectors in all of rural Mexico. Although Fowler identifies the incomplete documentation of pronunciamientos in some states as a primary obstacle, it also seems likely that the diversity of local motives for resistance limited the degree to which national movements went viral.Fowler's prose, as usual, is nimble. The author has a particular skill for navigating complex events with poignant anecdotes and flashes of humor. These traits, in combination with intriguing if underdeveloped linkages between nineteenth-century pronunciamientos and other protest movements across time and space like the recent Occupy protests and the so-called Arab Spring, make the book accessible for undergraduate nonspecialists. There is also a great deal of material that will fuel discussions at the graduate level and beyond. Most importantly, especially for teachers, Independent Mexico strengthens the foundation for talking about political tumult at the national level as a quasi-bureaucratic process in which a wide web of prominent citizens engaged

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