Celebrating Insurrection: The Commemoration and Representation of the Nineteenth-Century Mexican Pronunciamiento

The pronunciamiento, a formal list of grievances designed to spark political change in nineteenth-century Mexico, was a problematic yet necessary practice. Although pronunciamientos rarely achieved the goals for which they were undertaken and sometimes resulted in armed rebellion, they were nonetheless both celebrated and commemorated, and the perceptions and representations of pronunciamientos themselves reflected the Mexican people’s response to these “revolutions.”

The third in a series of books examining the pronunciamiento, this collection addresses the complicated legacy of pronunciamientos and their place in Mexican political culture. The essays explore the sacralization and legitimization of these revolts and of their leaders in the nation’s history and consider why these celebrations proved ultimately ineffective in consecrating the pronunciamiento as a force for good, rather than one motivated by desires for power, promotion, and plunder. Celebrating Insurrection offers readers interpretations of acts of celebration and commemoration that explain the uneasy adoption of pronunciamientos as Mexico’s preferred means of effecting political change during this turbulent period in the nation’s history.

Will Fowler is a professor of Latin American Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. He is the editor of Forceful Negotiations: The Origins of the Pronunciamiento in Nineteenth-Century Mexico and Malcontents, Rebels, and Pronunciados: The Politics of Insurrection in Nineteenth-Century Mexico, and the author of Santa Anna of Mexico, all available from the University of Nebraska Press.