Primary research into Mexican regional history gives this work its specific character, in conformance with a thriving contemporary approach. But Brittsan also connects his particular issues and period to wider implications regarding national political life. Beyond the historical details, necessary for factual elucidation, his themes branch outward into the disciplines of sociology, cultural anthropology, political analysis, and economic geography. These linkages make this work especially useful for scholars investigating how representative institutions emerge from postcolonial societies with rural majorities where absolutist forms of government had once prevailed. Brittsan discusses the problems encountered by “modernizing” liberal regimes in Southern/Eastern Europe or Latin America due to their lack of central control; the opposition to external interference in local affairs; the defense of community lands, grazing rights, and access to water; and the attempts to implement taxation and secularizing measures. In Mexico, “the emerging liberal state did everything in its power to dictate...

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