John Tutino has long been one of the premier historians of Mexico's agrarian past, and in this sweeping book he continues to explicate that past through deep research in primary sources, theoretical thinking, and historical synthesis. Focusing on areas of Mexico's core that are now located in the Federal District and the states of Hidalgo, Mexico, and Morelos, Tutino shows how Mexico's rural population was important to global capitalism and how changes in the world economy were lived locally. Far from a typical historical monograph, this outstanding book addresses big issues and covers a vast stretch of time.
Tutino tackles his ambitious agenda by interspersing sections in which he synthesizes the work of other scholars with sections based on his own detailed archival research. Even when he is writing more synthetically, Tutino's own ideas shine through clearly. More than reporting others’ findings, he reinterprets them to show how they fit into the larger historical trends that fascinate him. At times this makes the book seem like a class on Mexican agrarian and economic history, but there is no doubt that this is a class taught by someone deeply knowledgeable and passionate about the subject.
Tutino organizes the book around three eras, each dominated by a particular type of capitalism. For the colonial period, this is silver capitalism. Silver made Mexico crucial to the world economy, and, together with the demographic collapse and subsequent recovery, silver remade agriculture in central Mexico. Indigenous people forged new systems of land tenure, political authority, and religious culture after the demographic collapse, but demographic recovery made land scarce, and peasants had to supplement community-based production by working on estates. Eroding autonomy and security led many to attack estates during the 1810s. Rural violence undermined silver production and severed Mexico's political connection to Spain.
The second part covers the nineteenth century, which Tutino sees as organized by industrial capitalism. Early in this period villagers had more autonomy, and estates in central Mexico struggled. Later, new transportation methods and liberal efforts to privatize land bore fruit for capitalists, and villagers rapidly lost much of the autonomy they had gained earlier. This led to increasing violence within communities, and eventually to agrarian violence during the Mexican Revolution. Communities fought for economic and political autonomy while political elites fought for national unity and capitalist economic development, and the latter won out.
The book's third part covers the twentieth century, as elites experimented first with revived export capitalism and then industrial capitalism to serve Mexican markets. The national state used peasant demands for land to both support capitalism and control peasants, and the little autonomy peasants had achieved during the fighting of the Revolution was fleeting. Moreover, in central Mexico the voracious demand of Mexico City for people and land came to dominate the population in new ways. Globalization put an end to this set of capitalist dreams without improving the lot of Mexico's people, many of whom had transitioned from rural to urban living without gaining much benefit.
Many of the ways in which Tutino sees the big picture of Mexican agrarian and economic history are extremely thought-provoking. That said, though, the most fascinating material and the best writing in this book are often found in the more empirical sections, as the author delves deeply into primary sources, particularly estate records, to explain how peasants and agrarian capitalists interacted, and how peasants with differing economic prospects worked to support their families. Tutino seems overly pessimistic about the fate of poor Mexicans over time. Certainly, political and economic change eroded peasant autonomy and fueled migration. Yet, even though most rural migrants to Mexico City failed to find steady factory work, life expectancy and educational achievement both increased dramatically. This suggests that massive migration to cities may have been in some ways another example of the resilience and shrewdness of Mexico's impoverished majorities.
