In 1973, El Colegio de México published the first version of Historia mínima de México (followed in 1974 by the English translation A Compact History of Mexico) for the purpose of providing Mexicans living at that time with basic historical knowledge of their country. While preserving the aim of synthesis and simplicity that served as a basic guideline for the earlier Historia mínima de México, this new work constitutes a completely novel and original manuscript. Thus, A New Compact History of México is not only a “new history,” but also an innovative one. In its pages, readers will find accounts and perspectives enabling them to gain a fundamental understanding of Mexican history in an enjoyable way.
A Spaniard originally from Italy, the polymath Lorenzo Boturini Benaduci (1702–1753), known as Boturini, traveled to New Spain in 1736. Becoming fascinated by the Mesoamerican cultures of the New World, he collected and copied native writings—and learned Nahuatl, the language in which most of these documents were written. Boturini’s incomparable collection—confiscated, neglected, and dispersed after the Spanish crown condemned his intellectual pursuits—became the basis of his Idea of a New General History of North America. The volume, completed in 1746 and written almost entirely from memory, is presented here in English for the first time, along with the Catálogo, Boturini’s annotated enumeration of the works he had gathered in New Spain. Stafford Poole’s lucid and nuanced translation of the Idea and Catálogo allows Anglophone readers to fully appreciate Boturini’s unique accomplishment and his unparalleled and sympathetic knowledge of the native peoples of eighteenth-century Mexico. Poole’s introduction puts Boturini’s feat of memory and scholarship into historical context: Boturini was documenting the knowledge and skills of native Americans whom most Europeans were doing their utmost to denigrate. Through extensive, thoughtful annotations, Poole clarifies Boturini’s references to Greco-Roman mythology, authors from classical antiquity, humanist works, ecclesiastical and legal sources, and terms in Nahuatl, Spanish, Latin, and Italian. In his notes to the Catálogo, he points readers to transcriptions and translations of the original materials in Boturini’s archive that exist today. Invaluable for the new light they shed on Mesoamerican language, knowledge, culture, and religious practices, the Idea of a New General History of North America and the Catálogo also offer a rare perspective on the intellectual practices and prejudices of the Bourbon era—and on one of the most curious and singular minds of the time.
Historians are concerned today that the Spaniards' early accounts of their first experiences with the Indians in the Americas should be balanced with accounts from the Indian perspective. We People Here reflects that concern, bringing together important and revealing documents written in the Nahuatl language in sixteenth-century Mexico. James Lockhart's superior translation combines contemporary English with the most up-to-date, nuanced understanding of Nahuatl grammar and meaning. The foremost Nahuatl conquest account is Book Twelve of the Florentine Codex. In this monumental work, Fray Bernardino de Sahag�n commissioned Nahuas to collect and record in their own language accounts of the conquest of Mexico; he then added a parallel Spanish account that is part summary, part elaboration of the Nahuatl. Now, for the first time, the Nahuatl and Spanish texts are together in one volume with en face English translations and reproductions of the copious illustrations from the Codex. Also included are five other Nahua conquest texts. Lockhart's introduction discusses each one individually, placing the narratives in context.
He was sent from Spain on a religious crusade to Mexico to “detect the sickness of idolatry,” but Bernardino de Sahagún (c. 1499-1590) instead became the first anthropologist of the New World. The Franciscan monk developed a deep appreciation for Aztec culture and the Nahuatl language. In this biography, Miguel León-Portilla presents the life story of a fascinating man who came to Mexico intent on changing the traditions and cultures he encountered but instead ended up working to preserve them, even at the cost of persecution. Sahagún was responsible for documenting numerous ancient texts and other native testimonies. He persevered in his efforts to study the native Aztecs until he had developed his own research methodology, becoming a pioneer of anthropology. Sahagún formed a school of Nahua scribes and labored with them for more than sixty years to transcribe the pre-conquest language and culture of the Nahuas. His rich legacy, our most comprehensive account of the Aztecs, is contained in his Primeros Memoriales (1561) and Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva España (1577). Near the end of his life at age 91, Sahagún became so protective of the Aztecs that when he died, his former Indian students and many others felt deeply affected. Translated into English by Mauricio J. Mixco, León-Portilla’s absorbing account presents Sahagún as a complex individual–a man of his times yet a pioneer in many ways.
Advancing work to effectively study, understand, and serve the fastest growing U.S. ethnic minority population, this volume explicitly emphasizes the racial and ethnic diversity within this heterogeneous cultural group. The focus is on the complex historical roots of contemporary Latino/as, their diversity in skin-color and physiognomy, racial identity, ethnic identity, gender differences, immigration patterns, and acculturation. The work highlights how the complexities inherent in the diverse Latino/a experience, as specified throughout the topics covered in this volume, become critical elements of culturally responsive and racially conscious mental health treatment approaches. By addressing the complexities, within-group differences, and racially heterogeneity characteristic of U.S. Latino/as, this volume makes a significant contribution to the literature related to mental health treatments and interventions.
This volume explores several notable themes related to the economy in Latin America and offers insightful historical perspectives to understand national, regional, and global issues in the continent since the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. The collected essays focus on economic crises, the relationship of growth models to society and politics, the fluctuations of local economies, and regional protests. Other aspects of consideration in this area include the evolution of integrated regional trading blocs, the informal economy, and the destruction of the productive potential that has had a serious social, cultural, and environmental impact. The volume refuses to impose a traditional and uncritical linear historical narrative onto the reader and instead proposes an alternative interpretation of the past and its relation to the present.
This volume explores several notable themes related to political processes in Latin America and offers insightful historical perspectives to understand national, regional, and global issues in the continent from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day. The collected essays focus on Latin American politics such as: political cycles, left-wing political parties, nationalism, progressivism, crime and resistance, violence, authoritarianism, and relationships with the United States, Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, and Paraguay. The perspectives of the chapters presented an attempt to seek lines of continuity by highlighting traditional interpretations of new scenarios and refusing to impose a traditional and uncritical linear historical narrative. The fundamental objective of the volume is to provide a rational and critical political-historical explanation of Latin America since the early 20th century with the purpose, among others, of deepening understanding of the present.
In the wake of its early twentieth-century civil wars, Mexico strove to present itself to the world as unified and prosperous. The preparation in Mexico City for the 1968 Summer Olympics was arguably the most ambitious of a sequence of design projects that aimed to signal Mexico’s arrival in the developed world. In Spectacular Mexico, Luis M. Castañeda demonstrates how these projects were used to create a spectacle of social harmony and ultimately to guide the nation’s capital into becoming the powerful megacity we know today. Not only the first Latin American country to host the Olympics, but also the first Spanish-speaking country, Mexico’s architectural transformation was put on international display. From traveling exhibitions of indigenous archaeological artifacts to the construction of the Mexico City subway, Spectacular Mexico details how these key projects placed the nation on the stage of global capitalism and revamped its status as a modernized country. Surveying works of major architects such as Félix Candela, Pedro Ramírez Vázquez, Ricardo Legorreta, and graphic designer Lance Wyman, Castañeda illustrates the use of architecture and design as instruments of propaganda and nation branding. Forming a kind of “image economy,” Mexico’s architectural projects and artifacts were at the heart of the nation’s economic growth and cultivated a new mass audience at an international level. Through an examination of one of the most important cosmopolitan moments in Mexico’s history, Spectacular Mexico positions architecture as central to the negotiation of social, economic, and political relations.
This is the first and only comprehensive work to deal with a relatively unknown facet of Mexican social and religious history, the debates over the historicity of the Guadalupe apparitions and the historical existence of Juan Diego.
