Stormy Passage: Mexico from Colony to Republic, 1750–1850

Description

In this engaging book, Eric Van Young traces the political, economic, and social development of Mexico through the crucial one hundred years of its remarkable transition from a relatively prosperous Spanish colony to a violently unstable republic marked by economic stagnation, political confrontation, and burgeoning efforts at modernization. Featuring primary sources from figures of the period, Van Young discusses the political instability of the period—internal warfare, military uprisings, intermittent dictatorships, sharp conflicts among political groupings—and attributes them to a belief by political actors in the fundamental lack of legitimacy in central government institutions after the sweeping away of the Bourbon imperial structure and its replacement first with a very short-lived Mexican empire followed by a series of increasingly authoritarian aspirational republican constitutions. Cover Contents Acknowledgments Colonial Twilight Introduction Society in New Spain The Economy of New Spain in the Age of Silver Signs of Stress, Efforts at Reform The Tempest Arrives: Independence The Storm Breaks Who Were the Rebels? The Consummation of Independence Inventing Independent Mexico From Transient Empire to Fragile Republic, 1821–1832 The Age of Santa Anna Elusive Prosperity Conclusion For Further Reading Index