Hispanic Heritage Month

In 1847 General Winfield Scott boldly led a small but undaunted army from the Mexican coast all the way to the Halls of Montezuma, routing Mexican forces at every turn while pacifying the countryside. Scott’s military campaign—America’s first ever in a foreign country—helped pave the way for victory in the wider war against Mexico and also posed new challenges for discipline, logistics, and the treatment of civilians. Yet it has remained largely neglected by historians. In this first book-length study of Scott’s brilliant six-month campaign, Timothy Johnson shows how Scott overcame such obstacles as inadequate supplies, intense officer rivalries, and lack of support from President Polk—not to mention a country full of potentially hostile Mexicans—to keep his army intact deep in enemy territory and win the war.

The true operatic tragedy of Maximilian and Carlota, the European aristocrats who stumbled into power in Mexico—and faced bloody consequences. Assiduously researched and vividly told, The Last Emperor of Mexico is a dramatic story of European hubris, imperialist aspirations clashing with revolutionary fervor, and the Old World breaking from the New.

The Oxford History of Mexico is a narrative history of the events, institutions and characters that have shaped Mexican history from the reign of the Aztecs through the twenty-first century. When the hardcover edition released in 2000, it was praised for both its breadth and depth--all aspects of Mexican history, from religion to technology, ethnicity, ecology and mass media, are analyzed with insight and clarity. Available for the first time in paperback, the History covers every era in the nation's history in chronological format, offering a quick, affordable reference source for students, scholars and anyone who has ever been interested in Mexico's rich cultural heritage.

This book by historian Friedrich Katz, an anthropologist and historian who specialized in 19th- and 20th-century history of Latin America, particularly in the Mexican Revolution, traces the history of the Mexican Revolution, examines the influence of foreign governments and business interests, and explains why the revolution occurred.

The Mexican Revolution (1910-19) was the first seismic social convulsion of the twentieth century, superseded in historical importance only by the Russian and Chinese revolutions. Tierra y Libertad (land and liberty) was the watchword of the revolutionaries who fought a succession of autocrats in Mexico City. But the revolution was fired by a confusing multiplicity of issues- local, national, international, cultural, racial and economic. The two greatest rebel leaders were Francisco (Pancho) Villa and Emiliano Zapata, and Frank McLynn here tells the story of the Revolution through a dual biography of these legendary heroes.

Today he is known as Dr. Q, an internationally renowned neurosurgeon and neuroscientist who leads cutting-edge research to cure brain cancer. But not too long ago, he was Freddy, a nineteen-year-old undocumented migrant worker toiling in the tomato fields of central California. In this gripping memoir, Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa tells his amazing life story—from his impoverished childhood in the tiny village of Palaco, Mexico, to his harrowing border crossing and his transformation from illegal immigrant to American citizen and gifted student at the University of California at Berkeley and at Harvard Medical School. Packed with adventure and adversity—including a few terrifying brushes with death—Becoming Dr. Q is a testament to persistence, hard work, the power of hope and imagination, and the pursuit of excellence. It's also a story about the importance of family, of mentors, and of giving people a chance.

Dolores del Río's enormously successful career in Hollywood, in Mexico, and internationally illuminates issues of race, ethnicity, and gender through the lenses of beauty and celebrity. She and her husband left Mexico in 1925, as both their well-to-do families suffered from the economic downturn that followed the Mexican Revolution. Far from being stigmatized as a woman of color, she was acknowledged as the epitome of beauty in the Hollywood of the 1920s and early 1930s. While she insisted upon her ethnicity, she was nevertheless coded white by the film industry and its fans, and she appeared for more than a decade as a romantic lead opposite white actors. Returning to Mexico in the early 1940s, she brought enthusiasm and prestige to the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, becoming one of the great divas of Mexican film. With struggle and perseverance, she overcame the influence of men in both countries who hoped to dominate her, ultimately controlling her own life professionally and personally.

Discover one of the twentieth century's most celebrated artists and feminist icons in this gorgeously illustrated biography. Frida Kahlo is celebrated across the globe for her evocative self-portraits and lush depictions of her native Mexico. This beautifully illustrated biography is full of colorful details that illuminate the woman behind the artwork, including excerpts from Kahlo's personal letters and diaries. In quoted passages, she discusses her childhood dreams of becoming a doctor, the accident that changed the course of her life, and her love affairs with famous artists. Featuring handwritten text alongside lovely illustrations, this book provides a captivating window into the vibrant life, work, and creative vision of the beloved Mexican artist.

Amidst the pantheon of Mexican heroes, poet-revolutionary Práxedis G. Guerrero (1882–1910) is a name that is often overlooked. His importance, however, to a full understanding of a rich and dramatic pre-revolutionary period of Mexican history is undeniable. Ward S. Albro's To Die on Your Feet studies Guerrero's involvement in a movement led by Ricardo Flores Magón, a movement that brought about the Mexican Revolution against the government of Porfirio Díaz in 1910. Unlike other Mexican revolutionaries who are most notable as men of action, Guerrero combined thinking and doing. He was a courageous and active leader of the magonistas who attempted to rally by any means his meager forces to strike a telling blow against the dictatorship

Choreographing Mexico examines how bodies in motion both performed and critiqued the nation. Manuel Cuellar details the integration of Indigenous and regional dance styles into centennial celebrations, civic festivals, and popular films. Much of the time, this was a top-down affair, with cultural elites seeking to legitimate a hegemonic national character by incorporating traces of indigeneity. Yet dancers also used their moving bodies to challenge the official image of a Mexico full of manly vigor and free from racial and ethnic divisions. At home and abroad, dancers made nuanced articulations of female, Indigenous, Black, and even queer renditions of the nation. Cuellar reminds us of the ongoing political significance of movement and embodied experience, as folklórico maintains an important and still-contested place in Mexican and Mexican American identity today.

Mexico has a vast range of annual festivals; several commemorate national events, but most are religious or spiritual in inspiration. Drawing on her extensive travels in Mexico and the wide-ranging collections of the British Museum, Chloe Sayer gives a contemporary context to these colorful annual celebrations and shows how these festivities are uniquely Mexican.

This monumental work by Roberta and Peter Markman is an overview of the major myth systems that existed among indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica at about the time of the conquest. The authors present modern English translations of texts recorded by Spanish and Native chroniclers and show that a common worldview and system of meanings structures the apparent diversity of the region's cultures. In addition, they show how pre-Hispanic artists and artisans incorporated these fundamental mythic themes in their works, numerous illustrations of which adorn the book.

Rockefeller's collection of more than 3,000 pieces of Mexican folk art is widely considered to be the most exceptional in the U.S., and Folk Treasures of Mexico celebrates these icons—created from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries—with more than 150 photos of the pieces, many of which are quite rare.This updated edition of the long out-of-print book focusing on this stunning collection of Mexican folk art contains a new foreword by Rockefeller's daughter, Ann Rockefeller Roberts, and a new prologue by Marion Oettinger, Jr., the director of the San Antonio Museum of Art, who wrote the principal text about the collection. Folk Treasures of Mexico is a must-read for anyone interested in Latin American art, culture, and history.

A Revolution in Movement is the first book to illuminate how collaborations between dancers and painters shaped Mexico's postrevolutionary cultural identity. Snow draws from a rich trove of historical newspaper accounts and other contemporary documents to show how these collaborations produced an image of modern Mexico that would prove popular both locally and internationally and continues to endure today.