Pistoleros and Popular Movements: The Politics of State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780803222809)

The postrevolutionary reconstruction of the Mexican government did not easily or immediately reach all corners of the country. At every level, political intermediaries negotiated, resisted, appropriated, or ignored the dictates of the central government. National policy reverberated through Mexico's local and political networks in countless different ways and resulted in a myriad of regional arrangements. It is this process of diffusion, politicking, and conflict that Benjamin T. Smith examines in Pistoleros and Popular Movements.
Oaxaca's urban social movements and the tension between federal, state, and local governments illuminate the multivalent contradictions, fragmentations, and crises of the state-building effort at the regional level. A better understanding of these local transformations yields a more realistic overall view of the national project of state building. Smith places Oaxaca within this larger framework of postrevolutionary Mexico by comparing the region to other states and linking local politics to state and national developments. Drawing on an impressive range of regional case studies, this volume is a comprehensive and engaging study of postrevolutionary Oaxaca's role in the formation of modern Mexico.

Author: Benjamin T. Smith
ISBN-10: 0803222807
ISBN-13: 9780803222809
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Language: English
Published: 07/01/2009
Pages: 596
Format: Paperback
Weight: 1.80lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 1.20d

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 09/18/2009 pg. 17
Choice 05/01/2010