With this book, Eric Van Young provides an overview of one of the most complex and transcendental periods of Mexico's history. Most historians of Mexico focus on either the colonial or the national period; Van Young's analysis, however, presents both the dusk of New Spain and the dawn of the Mexican Republic. He describes profound transformations and, at the same time, unrelenting continuities. For instance, Mexicans produced a new and enduring political system, the republic; nonetheless, their political, social, cultural, and economic cultures remained stubbornly defined by colonial traditions.
Further, Van Young explains that Mexico's process of modernization became protracted because of disunity at the top. To be sure, the entire Mexican elite agreed on creating a stable and prosperous modern Mexican state. Yet they disagreed on the best ideology to achieve it. Conservative or Liberal? Monarchical or republican? Centralization or federation? Elitist or popular? In fact, the disruptive nature of independence made things worse, slowing down the process of modernization. Due to the weakness of the new state's sovereignty and its institutions, Mexico experienced no less than 1,243 pronunciamientos (military uprisings), between 1821 and 1855. Only strongmen such as Iturbide, Guerrero, Gómez Farias, and Santa Anna governed under a certain degree of stability, thanks to their heavy hand at the helm. Still, when these regimes fell, they invariably left havoc in their wake.
Van Young's underlying idea throughout the book is the tension that emerged between the political and economic elites fighting for modernization and the indigenous peoples—over 60 percent of the population at the time—struggling to preserve their political autonomy, cultures, and traditions. The first two chapters explain the state of the nation's society and economy. They are followed by a chronological narrative in the subsequent chapters. Van Young emphasizes the stubborn presence of the racial and social hierarchies defined by the colonial society and the importance of the Mexican Catholic Church in upholding the unity of the Mexican people at a time of an inchoate national identity. As to the economy, Van Young contrasts the subsistence agricultural economy of the vast majority of Mexican peasants with the more robust haciendas and mining industries that were concentrated in fewer hands.
The chronology begins with the Bourbon Reforms as the precondition leading to independence. Independence is the book's most prominent topic, and Van Young devotes three chapters to explaining this complex and critical event. These chapters progressively explore its context, the struggle and its main characters, and its consummation. The remaining two chapters discuss the struggles to establish a functioning republic, from Iturbide's fleeting ten-month empire in 1823 to Santa Anna's intermittent presidency between 1833 and 1855. The book closes with a final analysis of the prospect of the Mexican economy at mid nineteenth century, particularly the tensions between an unreliable silver economy and an industrialization unable to take off due to insufficient communication infrastructure, an unstable political environment, and a market dependent on poor Mexicans.
Van Young is ideally suited to write this book. For the past four decades, he has been teaching, researching, and publishing on this transitional period. As a result, his writing is both accessible and complex. It includes one of the most straightforward and complex analyses of the intricate reasons behind the events that led to the creation of an independent Mexico that I have read. His explanation of these reasons as “ingredients” in a cooking recipe is a perfect illustration of his book's combination of accessibility and complexity. In addition, his narrative includes occasional interjections in the form of comments, contextual explanations, and interconnections that, far from being a distraction to the flow of the story, make the story more fascinating. Furthermore, each chapter includes “boxes” of witness accounts of events central to the chapter's topic, taken from primary sources and presenting a great addition to those interested in gaining a feeling of the times.
Indeed, despite being a survey book, Stormy Passage is surprisingly deep and sophisticated. Although the apparent reader for this book is a college-level student, its engaging narrative and accessibility make this work an attractive alternative for any curious reader interested in early postcolonial Mexico.
