Review of Mexico in Transition by Byron Crites

Book Reviews
cosmologies affect political discontent and behaviour? He hints, for example, at a
‘ deeper cultural agenda ’ of the Totonac which is never satisfactorily developed and
interrogated (p. 39); and, he refers to Elio Masferrer ’ s interpretation of the Papantla
movement as a defence of Totonac ethnic identity (p. 121) but does not engage with
it in a substantive way. As such it makes it diffi cult to understand precisely what Ducey
means when he asserts that the ‘ repúblicas of the national period were not merely the
old colonial institutions. They were more sujeto oriented and probably more indigenous
[my emphasis] than had been their predecessors ’ (p. 102). To complicate matters
even more, he uses ‘ peasant ’ , ‘ villager ’ , ‘ Indian ’ , ‘ rural people ’ and ‘ rural lower classes ’
interchangeably. Finally, while the Church and priests have occasional walk-on roles,
they remain a shadowy presence and peasant women are virtually absent from Ducey ’ s
analysis. Despite such misgivings this is a welcome study of an important region which
remains understudied in the Anglophone literature.
Susan Deans-Smith
The University of Texas at Austin
Olesen, Thomas (2005) International Zapatismo: The Construction of Solidarity in the
Age of Globalization , Zed Books (London), 243 pp. £55.00 hbk, £17.95 pbk.
This book has many strengths. Scholars and journalists have written much about
Mexico ’ s Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), which stormed San Cristóbal
and other towns in Chiapas on 1 January 1994. But until now there has been
no book-length treatment devoted to its transnational dimensions. For the Zapatistas,
the support they ignited within hours of the rebellion has been critical to their survival.
Protests by supporters overseas and in Mexico helped compel the government to cease
attacks against the rebels in 1994 and again in 1995. Since then, transnational networking
has supplied the Zapatistas with resources, pressured the Mexican state, and
provided much needed solidarity. The rebellion helped change Mexico, spotlighting
the plight of the country ’ s Indians, leading to small but important policy changes toward
the indigenous population, and arguably strengthening Mexican civil society and
accelerating democratisation in the 1990s. The EZLN remains far from achieving
the sweeping goals it announced at the start of the rebellion. But it survives in rural
Chiapas, and its infl uence remains strong particularly among the country ’ s Indians.
The national and transnational support networks are an important reason for this, yet
until now we have not had a detailed examination of them or a good way to theorise
about them.
International Zapatismo fi rst fi lls the empirical gap. Olesen carefully examines the
diverse set of transnational followers who have supported the ELZN. His research is
impressive. He has analysed numerous documents and websites and interviewed key
players in the Americas and Europe. He provides a map of the ‘ transnational Zapatista
counterpublic ’ , identifying fi ve levels of ‘ informational infrastructure ’ . In particular, he
aims to explain why the Zapatistas, a small and weak movement which by most measures
has had only modest success at home, sparked such enduring support overseas.
© 2007 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2007 Society for Latin American Studies
140 Bulletin of Latin American Research Vol. 26, No. 1