Colby College

Associate Professor of Latin American Studies

Ben worked at Colby College as a Associate Professor of Latin American Studies

Colby College

Professor of Latin American Studies

Ben worked at Colby College as a Professor of Latin American Studies

Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán

Duke University Press

President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40) chose Yucatan to serve as a revolutionary laboratory. A long-standing revolutionary tradition tradition and a harsh division between a powerful white minority and a poor, Maya-speaking majority made the region the perfect site for an ambitious top-down project to mobilize the rural poor along ethnic and class lines. The Cardenas regime encouraged rural peasants to form collectives, hacienda workers to unionize, and urban laborers to strike. It also attempted to mobilize young people and women, to challenge Yucatán’s traditional, patriarchal social structure, to reach out to Mayan communities, and to democratize the political process. Although the project ultimately failed, political dialogue over Cárdenas’s efforts continues. Challenging both revisionist and neopopulist interpretations, _Cardenas Compromised_ overturns the notion that the state allowed no room for the agency of local actors. By focusing on historical connections across class, political, and regional lines, this book transforms ideas on Cardenismo that have long been accepted not only in Yucatán but throughout Mexico.

Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán

Duke University Press

President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40) chose Yucatan to serve as a revolutionary laboratory. A long-standing revolutionary tradition tradition and a harsh division between a powerful white minority and a poor, Maya-speaking majority made the region the perfect site for an ambitious top-down project to mobilize the rural poor along ethnic and class lines. The Cardenas regime encouraged rural peasants to form collectives, hacienda workers to unionize, and urban laborers to strike. It also attempted to mobilize young people and women, to challenge Yucatán’s traditional, patriarchal social structure, to reach out to Mayan communities, and to democratize the political process. Although the project ultimately failed, political dialogue over Cárdenas’s efforts continues. Challenging both revisionist and neopopulist interpretations, _Cardenas Compromised_ overturns the notion that the state allowed no room for the agency of local actors. By focusing on historical connections across class, political, and regional lines, this book transforms ideas on Cardenismo that have long been accepted not only in Yucatán but throughout Mexico.

Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America

University of Texas Press

Latin American history traditionally has been defined by larger-than-life heroes such as Símon Bolívar, Emiliano Zapata, and Evita Perón. Recent scholarship, however, tends to emphasize social and cultural factors rather than great leaders. In this new collection, Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw bring heroes back to the center of the debate, arguing that heroes not only shape history, they also "tell us a great deal about the places from which they come." The original essays in this collection examine ten modern Latin American heroes whose charisma derived from the quality of their relationships with admirers, rather than their innate personal qualities. The rise of mass media, for instance, helped pave the way for populists such as radio actress-turned-hero Evita Perón. On the other hand, heroes who become president often watch their images crumble, as policies replace personality in the eyes of citizens. In the end, the editors argue, there is no formula for Latin American heroes, who both forge, and are forged by, unique national events. The conclusion points toward Mexico, where the peasant revolutions that elevated Miguel Hidalgo and, later, Emiliano Zapata are so revered that today's would-be heroes, such as the EZLN's Subcomandante Marcos, must link themselves to peasant mythology even when their personal roots are far from native ground. The enduring (or, in some cases, fading) influence of those discussed in this volume validates the central placement of heroes in Latin American history.

Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán

Duke University Press

President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40) chose Yucatan to serve as a revolutionary laboratory. A long-standing revolutionary tradition tradition and a harsh division between a powerful white minority and a poor, Maya-speaking majority made the region the perfect site for an ambitious top-down project to mobilize the rural poor along ethnic and class lines. The Cardenas regime encouraged rural peasants to form collectives, hacienda workers to unionize, and urban laborers to strike. It also attempted to mobilize young people and women, to challenge Yucatán’s traditional, patriarchal social structure, to reach out to Mayan communities, and to democratize the political process. Although the project ultimately failed, political dialogue over Cárdenas’s efforts continues. Challenging both revisionist and neopopulist interpretations, _Cardenas Compromised_ overturns the notion that the state allowed no room for the agency of local actors. By focusing on historical connections across class, political, and regional lines, this book transforms ideas on Cardenismo that have long been accepted not only in Yucatán but throughout Mexico.

Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America

University of Texas Press

Latin American history traditionally has been defined by larger-than-life heroes such as Símon Bolívar, Emiliano Zapata, and Evita Perón. Recent scholarship, however, tends to emphasize social and cultural factors rather than great leaders. In this new collection, Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw bring heroes back to the center of the debate, arguing that heroes not only shape history, they also "tell us a great deal about the places from which they come." The original essays in this collection examine ten modern Latin American heroes whose charisma derived from the quality of their relationships with admirers, rather than their innate personal qualities. The rise of mass media, for instance, helped pave the way for populists such as radio actress-turned-hero Evita Perón. On the other hand, heroes who become president often watch their images crumble, as policies replace personality in the eyes of citizens. In the end, the editors argue, there is no formula for Latin American heroes, who both forge, and are forged by, unique national events. The conclusion points toward Mexico, where the peasant revolutions that elevated Miguel Hidalgo and, later, Emiliano Zapata are so revered that today's would-be heroes, such as the EZLN's Subcomandante Marcos, must link themselves to peasant mythology even when their personal roots are far from native ground. The enduring (or, in some cases, fading) influence of those discussed in this volume validates the central placement of heroes in Latin American history.

Peripheral Visions Politics, Society, and the Challenges of Modernity in Yucatan

University of Alabama Press

Yucatan has been called “a world apart”—cut off from the rest of Mexico by geography and culture. Yet, despite its peripheral location, the region experienced substantial change in the decades after independence. As elsewhere in Mexico, apostles of modernization introduced policies intended to remold Yucatan in the image of the advanced nations of the day. Indeed, modernizing change began in the late colonial era and continued throughout the 19th century as traditional patterns of land tenure were altered and efforts were made to divest the Catholic Church of its wealth and political and intellectual influence. Some changes, however, produced fierce resistance from both elites and humbler Yucatecans and modernizers were frequently forced to retreat or at least reach accommodation with their foes. Covering topics from the early 19th century to the late 20th century, the essays in this collection illuminate both the processes of change and the negative reactions that they frequently elicited. The diversity of disciplines covered by this volume—history, anthropology, sociology, economics—illuminates at least three overriding challenges for study of the peninsula today. One is politics after the decline of the Institutional Revolutionary Party: What are the important institutions, practices, and discourses of politics in a post-postrevolutionary era? A second trend is the scholarly demystification of the Maya: Anthropologists have shown the difficulties of applying monolithic terms like Maya in a society where ethnic relations are often situational and ethnic boundaries are fluid. And a third consideration: researchers are only now beginning to grapple with the region’s transition to a post-henequen economy based on tourism, migration, and the assembly plants known as maquiladoras. Challenges from agribusiness and industry will no doubt continue to affect the peninsula’s fragile Karst topography and unique environments.

Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán

Duke University Press

President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40) chose Yucatan to serve as a revolutionary laboratory. A long-standing revolutionary tradition tradition and a harsh division between a powerful white minority and a poor, Maya-speaking majority made the region the perfect site for an ambitious top-down project to mobilize the rural poor along ethnic and class lines. The Cardenas regime encouraged rural peasants to form collectives, hacienda workers to unionize, and urban laborers to strike. It also attempted to mobilize young people and women, to challenge Yucatán’s traditional, patriarchal social structure, to reach out to Mayan communities, and to democratize the political process. Although the project ultimately failed, political dialogue over Cárdenas’s efforts continues. Challenging both revisionist and neopopulist interpretations, _Cardenas Compromised_ overturns the notion that the state allowed no room for the agency of local actors. By focusing on historical connections across class, political, and regional lines, this book transforms ideas on Cardenismo that have long been accepted not only in Yucatán but throughout Mexico.

Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America

University of Texas Press

Latin American history traditionally has been defined by larger-than-life heroes such as Símon Bolívar, Emiliano Zapata, and Evita Perón. Recent scholarship, however, tends to emphasize social and cultural factors rather than great leaders. In this new collection, Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw bring heroes back to the center of the debate, arguing that heroes not only shape history, they also "tell us a great deal about the places from which they come." The original essays in this collection examine ten modern Latin American heroes whose charisma derived from the quality of their relationships with admirers, rather than their innate personal qualities. The rise of mass media, for instance, helped pave the way for populists such as radio actress-turned-hero Evita Perón. On the other hand, heroes who become president often watch their images crumble, as policies replace personality in the eyes of citizens. In the end, the editors argue, there is no formula for Latin American heroes, who both forge, and are forged by, unique national events. The conclusion points toward Mexico, where the peasant revolutions that elevated Miguel Hidalgo and, later, Emiliano Zapata are so revered that today's would-be heroes, such as the EZLN's Subcomandante Marcos, must link themselves to peasant mythology even when their personal roots are far from native ground. The enduring (or, in some cases, fading) influence of those discussed in this volume validates the central placement of heroes in Latin American history.

Peripheral Visions Politics, Society, and the Challenges of Modernity in Yucatan

University of Alabama Press

Yucatan has been called “a world apart”—cut off from the rest of Mexico by geography and culture. Yet, despite its peripheral location, the region experienced substantial change in the decades after independence. As elsewhere in Mexico, apostles of modernization introduced policies intended to remold Yucatan in the image of the advanced nations of the day. Indeed, modernizing change began in the late colonial era and continued throughout the 19th century as traditional patterns of land tenure were altered and efforts were made to divest the Catholic Church of its wealth and political and intellectual influence. Some changes, however, produced fierce resistance from both elites and humbler Yucatecans and modernizers were frequently forced to retreat or at least reach accommodation with their foes. Covering topics from the early 19th century to the late 20th century, the essays in this collection illuminate both the processes of change and the negative reactions that they frequently elicited. The diversity of disciplines covered by this volume—history, anthropology, sociology, economics—illuminates at least three overriding challenges for study of the peninsula today. One is politics after the decline of the Institutional Revolutionary Party: What are the important institutions, practices, and discourses of politics in a post-postrevolutionary era? A second trend is the scholarly demystification of the Maya: Anthropologists have shown the difficulties of applying monolithic terms like Maya in a society where ethnic relations are often situational and ethnic boundaries are fluid. And a third consideration: researchers are only now beginning to grapple with the region’s transition to a post-henequen economy based on tourism, migration, and the assembly plants known as maquiladoras. Challenges from agribusiness and industry will no doubt continue to affect the peninsula’s fragile Karst topography and unique environments.

The Seduction of Revolution: Anticlerical Campaigns against Confession in Mexico, 1914-1935

Journal of Latin American Studies 45:1

Male revolutionaries in Mexico repeatedly tried to suppress confession by invoking the trope of the sexually predatory priest menacing weak, superstitious woman. Campaigns against the rite of reconciliation resulted from long-standing gender divisions over the Church, fears of Catholic counterrevolution, and male revolutionaries’ drive to modernise marriage as companiate and secular but still patriarchal. Although ultimately unsuccessful as policy, attacks on the confession strengthened radical anticlericalism. By equating masculinity with reason, nation, and progress while painting femininity as vulnerable, fanatical, and potentially treasonous, the campaigns subtly shaped gender roles and helped consolidate postrevolutionary patriarchy.

Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán

Duke University Press

President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40) chose Yucatan to serve as a revolutionary laboratory. A long-standing revolutionary tradition tradition and a harsh division between a powerful white minority and a poor, Maya-speaking majority made the region the perfect site for an ambitious top-down project to mobilize the rural poor along ethnic and class lines. The Cardenas regime encouraged rural peasants to form collectives, hacienda workers to unionize, and urban laborers to strike. It also attempted to mobilize young people and women, to challenge Yucatán’s traditional, patriarchal social structure, to reach out to Mayan communities, and to democratize the political process. Although the project ultimately failed, political dialogue over Cárdenas’s efforts continues. Challenging both revisionist and neopopulist interpretations, _Cardenas Compromised_ overturns the notion that the state allowed no room for the agency of local actors. By focusing on historical connections across class, political, and regional lines, this book transforms ideas on Cardenismo that have long been accepted not only in Yucatán but throughout Mexico.

Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America

University of Texas Press

Latin American history traditionally has been defined by larger-than-life heroes such as Símon Bolívar, Emiliano Zapata, and Evita Perón. Recent scholarship, however, tends to emphasize social and cultural factors rather than great leaders. In this new collection, Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw bring heroes back to the center of the debate, arguing that heroes not only shape history, they also "tell us a great deal about the places from which they come." The original essays in this collection examine ten modern Latin American heroes whose charisma derived from the quality of their relationships with admirers, rather than their innate personal qualities. The rise of mass media, for instance, helped pave the way for populists such as radio actress-turned-hero Evita Perón. On the other hand, heroes who become president often watch their images crumble, as policies replace personality in the eyes of citizens. In the end, the editors argue, there is no formula for Latin American heroes, who both forge, and are forged by, unique national events. The conclusion points toward Mexico, where the peasant revolutions that elevated Miguel Hidalgo and, later, Emiliano Zapata are so revered that today's would-be heroes, such as the EZLN's Subcomandante Marcos, must link themselves to peasant mythology even when their personal roots are far from native ground. The enduring (or, in some cases, fading) influence of those discussed in this volume validates the central placement of heroes in Latin American history.

Peripheral Visions Politics, Society, and the Challenges of Modernity in Yucatan

University of Alabama Press

Yucatan has been called “a world apart”—cut off from the rest of Mexico by geography and culture. Yet, despite its peripheral location, the region experienced substantial change in the decades after independence. As elsewhere in Mexico, apostles of modernization introduced policies intended to remold Yucatan in the image of the advanced nations of the day. Indeed, modernizing change began in the late colonial era and continued throughout the 19th century as traditional patterns of land tenure were altered and efforts were made to divest the Catholic Church of its wealth and political and intellectual influence. Some changes, however, produced fierce resistance from both elites and humbler Yucatecans and modernizers were frequently forced to retreat or at least reach accommodation with their foes. Covering topics from the early 19th century to the late 20th century, the essays in this collection illuminate both the processes of change and the negative reactions that they frequently elicited. The diversity of disciplines covered by this volume—history, anthropology, sociology, economics—illuminates at least three overriding challenges for study of the peninsula today. One is politics after the decline of the Institutional Revolutionary Party: What are the important institutions, practices, and discourses of politics in a post-postrevolutionary era? A second trend is the scholarly demystification of the Maya: Anthropologists have shown the difficulties of applying monolithic terms like Maya in a society where ethnic relations are often situational and ethnic boundaries are fluid. And a third consideration: researchers are only now beginning to grapple with the region’s transition to a post-henequen economy based on tourism, migration, and the assembly plants known as maquiladoras. Challenges from agribusiness and industry will no doubt continue to affect the peninsula’s fragile Karst topography and unique environments.

The Seduction of Revolution: Anticlerical Campaigns against Confession in Mexico, 1914-1935

Journal of Latin American Studies 45:1

Male revolutionaries in Mexico repeatedly tried to suppress confession by invoking the trope of the sexually predatory priest menacing weak, superstitious woman. Campaigns against the rite of reconciliation resulted from long-standing gender divisions over the Church, fears of Catholic counterrevolution, and male revolutionaries’ drive to modernise marriage as companiate and secular but still patriarchal. Although ultimately unsuccessful as policy, attacks on the confession strengthened radical anticlericalism. By equating masculinity with reason, nation, and progress while painting femininity as vulnerable, fanatical, and potentially treasonous, the campaigns subtly shaped gender roles and helped consolidate postrevolutionary patriarchy.

Forced Marches: Soldiers and Military Caciques in Modern Mexico (co-edited with Terry Rugeley)

University of Arizona Press

Cárdenas Compromised: The Failure of Reform in Postrevolutionary Yucatán

Duke University Press

President Lazaro Cardenas (1934-40) chose Yucatan to serve as a revolutionary laboratory. A long-standing revolutionary tradition tradition and a harsh division between a powerful white minority and a poor, Maya-speaking majority made the region the perfect site for an ambitious top-down project to mobilize the rural poor along ethnic and class lines. The Cardenas regime encouraged rural peasants to form collectives, hacienda workers to unionize, and urban laborers to strike. It also attempted to mobilize young people and women, to challenge Yucatán’s traditional, patriarchal social structure, to reach out to Mayan communities, and to democratize the political process. Although the project ultimately failed, political dialogue over Cárdenas’s efforts continues. Challenging both revisionist and neopopulist interpretations, _Cardenas Compromised_ overturns the notion that the state allowed no room for the agency of local actors. By focusing on historical connections across class, political, and regional lines, this book transforms ideas on Cardenismo that have long been accepted not only in Yucatán but throughout Mexico.

Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America

University of Texas Press

Latin American history traditionally has been defined by larger-than-life heroes such as Símon Bolívar, Emiliano Zapata, and Evita Perón. Recent scholarship, however, tends to emphasize social and cultural factors rather than great leaders. In this new collection, Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw bring heroes back to the center of the debate, arguing that heroes not only shape history, they also "tell us a great deal about the places from which they come." The original essays in this collection examine ten modern Latin American heroes whose charisma derived from the quality of their relationships with admirers, rather than their innate personal qualities. The rise of mass media, for instance, helped pave the way for populists such as radio actress-turned-hero Evita Perón. On the other hand, heroes who become president often watch their images crumble, as policies replace personality in the eyes of citizens. In the end, the editors argue, there is no formula for Latin American heroes, who both forge, and are forged by, unique national events. The conclusion points toward Mexico, where the peasant revolutions that elevated Miguel Hidalgo and, later, Emiliano Zapata are so revered that today's would-be heroes, such as the EZLN's Subcomandante Marcos, must link themselves to peasant mythology even when their personal roots are far from native ground. The enduring (or, in some cases, fading) influence of those discussed in this volume validates the central placement of heroes in Latin American history.

Peripheral Visions Politics, Society, and the Challenges of Modernity in Yucatan

University of Alabama Press

Yucatan has been called “a world apart”—cut off from the rest of Mexico by geography and culture. Yet, despite its peripheral location, the region experienced substantial change in the decades after independence. As elsewhere in Mexico, apostles of modernization introduced policies intended to remold Yucatan in the image of the advanced nations of the day. Indeed, modernizing change began in the late colonial era and continued throughout the 19th century as traditional patterns of land tenure were altered and efforts were made to divest the Catholic Church of its wealth and political and intellectual influence. Some changes, however, produced fierce resistance from both elites and humbler Yucatecans and modernizers were frequently forced to retreat or at least reach accommodation with their foes. Covering topics from the early 19th century to the late 20th century, the essays in this collection illuminate both the processes of change and the negative reactions that they frequently elicited. The diversity of disciplines covered by this volume—history, anthropology, sociology, economics—illuminates at least three overriding challenges for study of the peninsula today. One is politics after the decline of the Institutional Revolutionary Party: What are the important institutions, practices, and discourses of politics in a post-postrevolutionary era? A second trend is the scholarly demystification of the Maya: Anthropologists have shown the difficulties of applying monolithic terms like Maya in a society where ethnic relations are often situational and ethnic boundaries are fluid. And a third consideration: researchers are only now beginning to grapple with the region’s transition to a post-henequen economy based on tourism, migration, and the assembly plants known as maquiladoras. Challenges from agribusiness and industry will no doubt continue to affect the peninsula’s fragile Karst topography and unique environments.

The Seduction of Revolution: Anticlerical Campaigns against Confession in Mexico, 1914-1935

Journal of Latin American Studies 45:1

Male revolutionaries in Mexico repeatedly tried to suppress confession by invoking the trope of the sexually predatory priest menacing weak, superstitious woman. Campaigns against the rite of reconciliation resulted from long-standing gender divisions over the Church, fears of Catholic counterrevolution, and male revolutionaries’ drive to modernise marriage as companiate and secular but still patriarchal. Although ultimately unsuccessful as policy, attacks on the confession strengthened radical anticlericalism. By equating masculinity with reason, nation, and progress while painting femininity as vulnerable, fanatical, and potentially treasonous, the campaigns subtly shaped gender roles and helped consolidate postrevolutionary patriarchy.

Forced Marches: Soldiers and Military Caciques in Modern Mexico (co-edited with Terry Rugeley)

University of Arizona Press

Religion and State Formation in Postrevolutionary Mexico

Duke University Press

The religious question--the place of the Church in a Catholic country after an anticlerical revolution--profoundly shaped the process of state formation in Mexico. From the end of the Cristero War in 1929 until Manuel Avila Camacho assumed the presidency in 1940 and declared his faith, Mexico's unresolved religious conflict roiled regional politics, impeded federal schooling, undermined agrarian reform, and flared into sporadic violence, ultimately frustrating the secular vision shared by Plutarco Elias Calles and Lazaro Cardenas.