HIST 148 The Mexican Revolution: 1910 to NAFTA (Not offered 2006-2007; to be offered 2007-2008) (W)*
The first great revolution in the twentieth century, the Mexican Revolution was
as dramatic and compelling as later episodes in Russia, China and Cuba. Using a
wide variety of sources-from films, murals, and comic books to classic works
of political and social history-this seminar will examine the forces that exploded in over a decade of violence and produced the peculiar "institutional revolutionary" government that ruled Mexico from the 1920s to the crises of the
late 1990s. Was the Revolution a true social revolution or just a "palace coup"?
Did workers, women, peasants, or indigenous peoples make real gains in social
or political power during the after the Revolution? How democratic or authoritarian is the Mexico that emerged from the brutal decade of the 1910s? Finally,
in light of globalization, the political scandals of the 1990s, and ongoing peasant
rebellion in Chiapas, is the Revolution dead or is its promise only now to be fulfilled?
Format: seminar. Evaluation will be based on class participation, a series of short
written assignments, and a research paper.
No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 19 (expected: 19). Preference will be given to first-year
students, and then sophomores, who have not previously taken a 100-level seminar.
Group C