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Revolution within the Revolution
Cotton Textile Workers and the Mexican Labor Regime, 1910-1923

Jeffrey Bortz


2008

264 pp.
26 tables.
ISBN-10: 0804758069
ISBN-13: 9780804758062
Cloth $65.00

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Author Info



"Bortz reinterprets the history of labor in such a way as to restore to workers their 'rightful' place in the history of revolutionary and post-revolutionary Mexico. He seeks no less than to turn the history of the Revolution on its head. The book will create a lively debate among labor historians of Latin America."
—Mark Wasserman, Rutgers University

Mexico's revolution of 1910 ushered in a revolutionary era: during the twentieth century, Mexican, Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Nicaraguan, and Iranian revolutions shaped local, regional, and world history. Because Mexico was at the time a rural and agrarian country, it is not surprising that historians have concentrated on the revolution in the countryside where the rural underclass fought for land. This book uncovers a previously unknown workers' revolution within the broader revolution. Working in Mexico's largest factory industry, cotton textile operatives fought their own fight, one that challenged and overthrew the old labor regime and changed the social relations of work. Their struggle created the most progressive labor regime in Latin America, including but not limited to the famous Article 123 of the 1917 Constitution. Revolution within the Revolution analyzes the rules of labor and explains how they became a pillar of the country's political system. Through the rest of the twentieth century, Mexico's land reform and revolutionary labor regime allowed it to avoid the revolution and repression experienced elsewhere in Latin America.

Historian Jeffrey Bortz has taught at Appalachian State University since 1989. Over the course of his career, he has been awarded grants from the Fulbight Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Social Science Research Council. He is the co-editor, with Stephen Haber, of The Mexican Economy, 1870-1930 (Stanford, 2002).

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Subject link:     History -- Latin American