Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader [Paperback]

John Womack Jr. (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1565844521 | ISBN-13: 978-1565844520 | Publication Date: March 1, 1999

An acclaimed historian of Mexico traces the roots of the current crisis in Chiapas--including primary source documents. Once again, the rebellion in Chiapas has made headlines everywhere with revelations of harsh governmental repression against Indian villagers sympathetic to the five-year-old uprising of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation (EZLN). In this new book, America's leading scholar of Mexico looks not only at these last five years of conflict but at 500 years of struggle and uneasy accommodation between Chiapas's primarily Maya population and the Spanish conquerors and criollo landowners. Rebellion in Chiapas opens with a major new essay by John Womack, Jr., examining the Zapatista revolt and chronicling the attempts at a negotiated peace. It goes on to reveal the roots of the rebellion through a range of primary source materials and other documents, most newly translated, and all placed in context by the author. The result is a compelling picture of the forces that have shaped Chiapas, and an indispensable resource for anyone attempting to understand the dramatic events there. Selections include: the writings of Subcomandante Marcos and Bishop Samuel Ruz, as well as EZLN communiqus; contemporary and archival oral histories of Chiapas Indians; newspaper and historical accounts of pivotal events in the region; accounts of the conquest and colonial period by Thomas Gage, Cristbal de las Casas, and others.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Few events in the past ten years have focused the interest of the world on Mexico like the unrest in the southern state of Chiapas. The revolutionary activities of the Zapatista Army for National Liberation have drawn attention to a 500-year struggle between the majority Mayan population and the Spanish and Mexican rulers of the region. Womack, a professor of Latin American history at Harvard and a prominent historian of 20th-century Mexico, has brought together a collection of readings and documents that illuminate this difficult and important struggle. Though some of the sources date from the 16th century, this collection concerns primarily the most recent conflict. Of great value is a 74-page introductory essay by Womack that traces the history of the conflict. This volume will be a welcome addition to most college and research libraries as well as many large public libraries.AMark L. Grover, Brigham Young Univ. Lib., Provo, UT
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

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Product Details

• Paperback: 372 pages
• Publisher: New Press, The (March 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565844521
• ISBN-13: 978-1565844520
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #727,656 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent collection of hard-to-find documents., March 4, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader (Paperback)

Rebellion in Chiapas is a good counterpart to Neil Harvey's The Chiapas Rebellion. Womack's introductory essay, essentially a compact book about the history of Chiapas itself, is careful, thoughtful and thorough. Very Womack. The readings he have selected are interesting to read and very important to any understanding of the rebellion, and they are very hard to find even for people who have tried to keep up with the crisis in Chiapas. Womack's comments on each selection are nearly as interesting as the documents themselves. For anyone interested in Chiapas, this book is essential.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant blend of historical and contemporary issues, February 10, 2003

By 

A. Arnold (Cambridge, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader (Paperback)

Reaching into the depths of Mexican colonial history, Womack explores the historical roots of dissatisfaction in Chiapas. His examination of the background of the rebellion provides a useful lens through which all of the major events of the Mexican past can be seen as precursors to the 1994 uprising. While this type of analysis may border on overdetermination, Womack makes certain to provide an account that properly considers the rebellion a modern conflict. He concludes that three factors are particularly significant: the transformation of material life in Chiapas, the entrance of 'outsiders' into the political life of Mexico's rural regions, and the ascension of a bishop, Samuel Ruiz, who continued to exemplify the socially-oriented Catholic Church of the 1960s in the altogether different times of the 1990s. Womack's book is especially effective at tracing these final two trends. The combination of the leftist ideology brought into the rural Chiapas by Marxist and Maoist groups, along with a cleric that encouraged his parishioners to defend their rights, was instrumental in bringing about the rebellion. Womack engages in this kind of analysis time and again in Rebellion in Chiapas, making his historical study of a conflict that has yet to be resolved more relevant than ever.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a very comprehensive primary source account of the situation, February 9, 2000

By 

Greg Wise (new york, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rebellion in Chiapas: An Historical Reader (Paperback)

this is a very good book on the chiapas, it starts with a 60 page essay narrating the birth of the conflict, it goes very far back and very deep in detail, then the rest of the book is devoted to primary source documents that are relevant in some way, it has a couple of teh ezln's communiques by subcommandante marcos, very dense, it really is a historical reader, very complete and covers the whole history, good book,