Introductory description

Over the past century, Mexicans have endured a revolutionary civil war, two religious uprisings, a vicious Cold War counter-insurgency, nearly fifty years of authoritarian government, countless devaluations, and nearly a decade of violent confrontations between drug cartels. Yet Mexicans have also experienced far-reaching social reforms, unparalleled levels of economic growth, rapid rates of industrialisation and urbanisation, and seventy years of relative political stability. This module seeks to understand these contradictions and the ways in which they have affected Mexicans’ everyday lives.

These processes, the bargaining between civil society actors and the state and the uses of the past and the understanding of history in these processes can only be understood through an understanding of the History of Mexico in the Modern period since the arrival of Europeans and Africans in Mesoamerica in 1519.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Term 1
Week 1: Mexico: An Introduction
Week 2: Mexican Independence (1810-1821)
Week 3: Democracy and Dictatorship (1821-1846)
Week 4: The Mexican American War (1846-1848)
Week 5: Civil War and Benito Juarez (1848-1876)
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Porfirio Diaz: The Liberal Dictator (1876-1910)
Week 8: The Mexican Revolution (1910-1920)
Week 9: Revolutionary Reform (1920-1940)
Week 10: Cultural Reform (1920-1940)

Term 2
Week 1: Counter Revolution and the PRI State (1940-1968)
Week 2: The PRI State and the Mass Media (1940-1976)
Week 3: The 1968 Student Movement
Week 4: Guerrillas and Counter Insurgency (1965-1982)
Week 5: Modern Mexico: Neoliberalism and Democratization
Week 6: Reading Week
Week 7: Modern Mexico: Zapatistas and Indigenous Rights
Week 8: Modern Mexico: Migration and the Border
Week 9: Modern Mexico: The Drug Trade and the War on Drugs
Week 10: Narcoculture

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a detailed knowledge of historical and theoretical interpretations of modern Mexico.
• Communicate ideas and findings, adapting to a range of situations, audiences and degrees of complexity.
• Generate ideas through the analysis of a broad range of primary source material for the study of modern Mexico.
• Analyse and evaluate the contributions made by existing scholarship.
• Act with limited supervision and direction within defined guidelines, accepting responsibility for achieving deadlines.

Indicative reading list

• Matthew Restall, Lisa Sousa and Kevin Terraciano eds. Mesoamerican Voices: Native Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Yucatán and Guatemala. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014)
• Mark Wasserman, Everyday Life and Politics in nineteenth-century Mexico: men, women and war. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000)
• Gilbert Joseph and Jurgen Buchenau, Mexico Once and Forever Revolution (Durham: Duke University Press, 2014)
• Paolo Riguzzi, From Globalisation to Revolution? The Porfirian Political Economy: An Essay on Issues and Interpretations, Journal of Latin American Studies
• Jennie Purnell, With All Due Respect: Popular Resistance to the Privatization of Communal Lands in Nineteenth-Century Michoacan, Latin American Research Review
• Alan Knight, The Mexican Revolution
• John Coatsworth, Railroads, Landholding, and Agrarian Protest in the Early Porfiriato
• Gilbert Joseph and Allen Wells, Corporate Control of a Monocrop Economy: International Harvester and Yucatan's Henequen Industry during the Porfiriato
• Matthew Butler and Antonio Escobar Ohmstede, “Transitions and Closures in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Mexican Agrarian History” in Mexico in transition: new perspectives on Mexican agrarian history, nineteenth and twentieth centuries/ México y sus transiciones: reconsideraciones sobre la historia agraria mexicana, siglos XIX y XX
• Emilio Kouri, A Pueblo Divided
• Frederick Katz, The Life and Times of Pancho Villa
• Mary Kay Vaughan and Heather Fowler-Salamini (eds.) Women of the Mexican Countryside.
• Eric Zolov, Refried Elvis
• Jaime Pensado, Rebel Mexico
• Fernando Calderón and Adela Cedillo, (eds) Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico: Revolutionary struggles and the dirty war, 1964-1982
• Benjamin T. Smith and Paul Gillingham, Dictablanda: Politics, Work, and Culture in Mexico
• Gilbert Joseph and Daniella Spenser (eds.), In from the Cold: Latin America's new encounter with the Cold War
• Alex Aviña, Specters of revolution: Peasant guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican countryside
• Alberto Ulloa, Surviving Mexico's Dirty War

Subject specific skills

See learning outcomes.

Transferable skills

See learning outcomes.