The Eagle: The Autobiography of Santa Anna [Hardcover]

Antonio Santa Anna (Author), Ann Fears Crawford (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1988

One of the most remarkable American historical documents of the nineteenth century is Santa Anna's autobiography of his career as a pivotal player in the history of three nations-Mexico, Texas, and the United States.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 299 pages
• Publisher: State House Pr (December 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0938349295
• ISBN-13: 978-0938349297
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #712,887 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Contents of the 1988 State House Press (Austin) edition, Edited by and Preface by Ann Fears Crawford, September 4, 2005

By 

bookdealers2 "I love books!" (Webster, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Eagle: The Autobiography of Santa Anna (Paperback)

Introduction by Jaime S. Platon, San Juan Puerto Rico.
Preface by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Nassau in the Bahamas, February 12, 1874.
My Military and Political History -- Beginnings (1810-1822)
The Empire (1822-1823)
The Republic (1824-1825)
The Election of Vicente Guerrero (1828)
The Spanish Invasion (1829)
The Vera Cruz Act -- Pedraza Becomes President (1832)
My Election as President -- The Texas Campaign (1833-1836)
My Resignation as President -- The Defense of Vera Cruz (1837-1838)
The Revolution -- The Presidency Again -- Exile (1841-1844)
The United States Invades Mexico -- My Return and Final Campaign (1845-1848)
My Attempted Assassination -- I Leave for Jamaica (1848)
My Return to Power (1850-1853)
Revolution -- Exile Again (1853-1855)
My Exile -- Muarez's Rise to Power (1855-1859)
Revolution -- The French Empire in Mexico (1859-1856)
Mr. Seward -- The Infamous Plot Against Me (1865-1866)
My Trip to New York -- Further Infamies (1866-1867)
Back to Vera Cruz -- Imprisonment (1867)
My Trial (1867)
The Plottings of Juarez -- My Last Journey to Nassau (1867-1872)
Conclusion
The End of the Story
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Many illustrations from the John H. Jenkins Collection

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is a great book with new and unique perspectives., March 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Eagle: The Autobiography of Santa Anna (Hardcover)

This is a great book which gives a new perspective to the Texas War for Independence, and the Mexican War. He explains himself very well and blames himself some, but mostly his subordiantes. He is very respectful to the American and Texas forces. This book is a must read for 1840's enthusiasts!

4.0 out of 5 stars A complicated man, trapped in his own charisma, August 15, 2010

By 

Melissa E. Davis (Seattle) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Eagle: The Autobiography of Santa Anna (Hardcover)

This is autobiography, and like all autobiography, I suggest getting a context, not just for the battles and generals of the Texas War of Independence and Mexican-American War, but of the very different economic and political contexts of the two nations. I read and recommend: 1. Timothy L. Henderson's "A Glorious Defeat", which was a wonderful overview of the economic and political environments of both countries during this time. The US was older than Mexico only about 40 years, but the American Nation did exist (though divided by slavery)even as Mexico was a mixture of an aristocratic, politically and economically powerful institutional Catholic hierarchy; a racist based class structure (pure Euro-Spanish, Euro-British and Euro-French; not-quite white Mestizos; peasants, and divided Native Americans, from the more developed agrarian Natives in the South to the substance hunter gatherers in the northern deserts. The second book, by General John S.D. Eisenhower (son of the late president and five star general Dwight D. Eisenhower), "So Far from God", the title coming from his line in the book: (the agony of Mexico is that it is): "So far from God and so close to the United States."

Antonio Lopez de Santana embodied politics and the weilding of power and influence, though not continuously after the end of the war, from Mexican independence until his decline in the 1870's. Mexico did not have a "center" (much like the United States since 1984 or so with the loss of its centrist Senator coalitions (e.g., Howard Baker, Everett Dirkson, Scoop Jackson, Warren Manguson, James Sasser, James Patric Moynahan, etc.). The divisions of Creole (descendents of the Euro-Spanish), urban Mestizo, rural peasant, the Native Americas; the alliances of the rich conservatives with the rich Catholic hierarchy vs the populists, made action and nation building impossible. Presidential terms lasted only months, evem, usually Santana's foray's into office then withdrawal to his plantations or to assume supreme generalship of the Army.

Against this backdrop: his autobiography. This is only Santana's view, his self-centered view written at the end of his life to attempt a favorable impression of his role in history: his view runs the genre of a simple man, sacrificing himself for his people and his country with no ulterior selfish motives. If he says his life was about nation building, he failed history's bar, unless substituting a constant external enemy for nationhood is enough. He impoverished his people, was a poor general, and built nothing, even as he substituted playing factions off against each other, changing political sides and agendas to suit the prevailing power factions to keep himself im power.

What emerges is the sadness of an obsessive power-seeker able to exercise charismatic magnetism, but without an internal compass pointing to anything but themselves. One sees here only a clear portrait of leaders willing to sham a populace while playing to the self-interested competing interests at the centers of power. One sees how such leaders manipulate the ideology of the components not only against themselves, but against the best interests and well being of the people and the nation as a whole.

Still, I am happy that I read this, though far from every word of his self-aggrandizing self-portrait. There is a sadness in it, not only of a man nearing his inevitable death, but one trying to "put the best face on it", twisting externally verifiable truth in the process.