Rethinking Mexican Indigenismo : The INI's Coordinating Center in Highland Chiap [Paperback]

This book traces how indigenista innovation gave way to stagnation as local opposition, shifting national priorities, and waning financial support took their toll.Stephen E. Lewisis a professor of history at California State University, Chico. He is the author ofThe Ambivalent Revolution: Forging State and Nation in Chiapas, 1910-1945and the coeditor ofThe Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940.[Lewis's] approach, grounded in painstaking archival work and the author's deep knowledge of the region, yields a superb analysis of the fraught relationship among revolutionary indigenism, Mexican anthropology, and Tzeltal and Tzotzil communities.--Ben Fallaw,American Historical ReviewOverall, Lewis has provided a rich, exhaustive account ofindigenismofrom the 1940s through the 1970s that will become required reading for anyone trying to understand Mexican rural politics during this time period.--Hispanic American Historical ReviewOverall, Lewis has provided a rich, exhaustive account ofindigenismofrom the 1940s through the 1970s that will become required reading for anyone trying to understand Mexican rural politics during this time period.--Hispanic American Historical ReviewA welcomed addition to the growing scholarship that attempts to make sense of Mexico's rapid decline as a continental leader on indigenous policies.--IK: Other Ways of KnowingRethinking Mexican Indigenismois one of but a few archive-based studies--and the first in English to focus on Chiapas--that treats indigenismo as a historical subject. Overall, Lewis's book is a fascinating portrait of how, in the author's words, 'an indigenista project that initially contemplated major structural reforms [. . .] ended up a widely criticized, largely ineffective bureaucracy that lost the support of the very people it purported to serve.'--Tribal College Journal of American Indian Higher EducationWell wril£#