Advanced Search
Print - Close Window
www.greenwood.com/catalog/GM0914.aspx
All Greenwood Products
Tornel and Santa Anna The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico 1795-1853
(Click to Enlarge)
This book is not currently available for purchase Online. Please call 1-800-225-5800 to backorder.
Book Code: GM0914
ISBN: 0-313-30914-0
ISBN-13: 978-0-313-30914-4
328 pages, figure
Greenwood Press
Publication: 4/30/2000
List Price: $131.95 (UK Sterling Price: £75.00)
Availability: Out of stock
Media Type: Hardcover
Also Available: Ebook
Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4
Subjects:
Series Title: Contributions in Latin American Studies
Series Number: 14
Reviews:
  • ...Fowler has contributed significantly to the new wave of historiography through this and earlier books...[a] very important contribution to Mexican historiography.
    —Choice
    .
  • [A] heavily footnoted, exhaustively researched, and important study on one of the principal figures of the time....If Santa Anna remains the central enigma in early republican Mexican history, Fowler's biography clearly demonstrates the pivotal role Tornel played.
    —Latin American Research Review
    2005
  • [A] substantial step forward in our knowledge of the Santa Anna era.
    —Latin American Studies
    2002
  • Fowler's study of Tornel and Santa Anna casts new light on the complex evolution of politics and relationships during Mexico's postindependence decades.
    —New Mexico Historical Review
    Fall 2002
  • ...a significant contribution to the history of Mexican politics during the early nationa period.
    —South Eastern Latin Americanist
    Summer/Fall 2002
  • Because this is a well-researched study by one of the foremost experts of the period, it offers a rare view into the complex events that characterized early nineteenth-century Mexico....It is a compelling read, free of jargon, that is up-to-date on the political trends of the era, and it puts to rest many stereotypes about Santa Anna, as well as Tornel and other Mexican leaders.
    —Western Historical Quarterly
    Winter 2001
Description: This is a study of one of the leading politicians of Independent Mexico, Jose Maria Tornel y Mendivil, whose loyalty to Santa Anna and whose skills as a writer led him to play a crucial role in enabling the caudillo's repeated rise to power during this period. This first biography of Tornel in English provides a new insight into the political thought of the santanistas and the ways in which Santa Anna was able to return to power time and again in spite of the fact that he was deemed responsible for such major national disasters as the Texas campaign of 1836 and the 1847 defeat against the United States. A close analysis of Tornel's own political evolution, from advocating a radical federalist agenda in the 1820s to defending reactionary dictatorship in the 1850s, illustrates the extent to which the santanistas' policies changed as the hopeful, early 1820s degenerated into the despair of the late 1840s. As the leading ideologue of the santanistas, a study of his politics, paying close attention to the way they evolved in response to the different crises Mexico underwent, highlights, for the first time, the extent to which Santa Anna and his followers upheld a particular political agenda which was essentially populist, militaristic, antipolitics, and nationalistic, and varied depending on the prevailing circumstances and the different historical contexts in which it surfaced. A study of Tornel's activities as Santa Anna's main informer in the capital, his leading propagandist, and as a key player in the orchestration of revolts such as the 1834 Plan of Cuernavaca, serves to show the extent to which Santa Anna's success relied on Tornel's services. Coincidentally or not, without Tornel, Santa Anna was not able to return to power after his fall in 1855.
Table of Contents:
  • Preface
  • The Formative Years (1795-1824)
  • From Hope to Disenchantment: The Emergence of the Professional Politician (1824-1829)
  • Snakes and Ladders (1830-1840)
  • "So Many Hopes of a Blissful Future" (1841-1844)
  • "Ploughing the Sea" The Mexican--American War and its Aftermath (1845-1853)
  • Conclusion
  • Bibliography
  • Index
LC Card Number: 99-43268
LCC Class: F1232
Dewey Class: 972
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999-2009 Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
88 Post Road West, Westport CT 06881, (203) 226-3571