Democrat to autocrat: The transformation of Porfirio Diaz

It is an ancient principle of politics that a revolution devours its children. Danton and Robespierre began as rebel leaders against France’s ancien régime but Robespierre ended by cutting off Danton’s head — and then being separated from his own. Kerensky led the bourgeois revolution that overthrew the Tsar — only to be replaced by […]

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Guadalupe Victoria: Mexico’s unknown first president

History has rarely furnished a more striking example of high-profile-low-profile than that of the first presidents of the United States and Mexico. George Washington was and is the quintessential household word — Father of his Country, leader of the Continental armies during the Revolutionary War and two-time president whose name is every bit as much […]

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Mexico’s Voltaire: Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi (1776-1827)

Because of the many fables he wrote, there are those who may wish to compare José Joaquin Fernández de Lizardi to La Fontaine. Such a comparison fails to do justice to both writers. Apart from the Contes, skillfully etched narratives of casual romance published in 1664, La Fontaine is chiefly known for his animal fables […]

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Alone at the top: The achievement of Mexico’s Alvaro Obregon

Revolution is the ultimate test for survival of the fittest. In times of stormy social change, intense competition is generated among leaders of forces seeking that change and, inevitably, one man emerges alone at the top. Sometimes this process is peaceful but that is the exception rather than the rule. By the time Napoleon assumed […]

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Mexican priest, poet and educator: The multiple talents of Manuel Ponce (1913-1994)

From Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Catholic cleric who is also a poet is an unending subject of interest. Given the poet’s traditional role as a free spirit and the Church’s tradition of rigid intellectual discipline, the term poet-priest (or poet-nun) may seem to some an oxymoron. And there […]

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Sexenios in a changing world: Mexican Presidents Lopez Mateos and Diaz Ordaz

In 1958, the year Adolfo López Mateos became president of Mexico, the world was relatively tranquil. The Korean War was over and Vietnam was in a lull between the defeat of the French in 1954 and the formation of the National Liberation Front (Vietcong) at the end of 1960. In France, Charles de Gaulle had […]

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Glorious innocent: The tragedy and triumph of Francisco Madero (1873–1913)

Francisco Madero was a man who was too good for his own good. Naive, trusting, merciful toward those who deserved no mercy, he was in the end betrayed and murdered by those in whom he had mistakenly placed his trust. A rich man’s son whose following included bandits and killers, a teetotaler and spiritualist in […]

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Nicolas Bravo: Liberator – yes, liberal – no! (1786-1854)

Of the leaders of the Mexican independence movement, the one who most resembled Nicolás Bravo was Ignacio de Allende. In my coverage on Allende, I described him as a “law-and-order” rebel, one who believed in independence from Spain but rejected radical transformations of society and detested mob violence. Nicolás Bravo was in the same mold, […]

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Orderly rebel: The life and thought of Ignacio de Allende (1779 – 1811)

Rebels, we know, can range from wild-eyed anarchists to sober and judicious opponents of an established order who make a considered decision that the system under which they live is no longer viable. If there ever was a “law-and-order” rebel, it was Ignacio de Allende y Unzaga. Where many who rose against the Spanish crown […]

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Chameleon adventurer: The astonishing career of Agustin de Iturbide (1783 – 1824)

Probably the individual in history who most resembled Agustin de Iturbide was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the French statesman who managed to hold high positions in the pre-revolutionary ancien regime, the revolutionary government, the court of Napoleon, the restored Bourbon dynasty and the bourgeois monarchy of “Citizen King” Louis Philippe. Talleyrand, who made opportunism into […]

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