In a reading of sources regarding the U.S.-Mexican War, the reader is struck by certain portrayals of the U.S. and Mexico, the former as a powerful nation and the latter as underdeveloped, weak, and disorganized. These portrayals are apparent in both secondary and primary sources dealing with the war, for varying reasons in each case. In the primary sources, most of which are American (at least those used by researchers from the U.S.), the presentations of American greatness and Mexican weakness are closely tied with American chauvinism of the time period, which pervaded most writing and documentation. The secondary literature seems to have fallen victim to this pervasive chauvinism, echoing the idea that the U.S. was not plagued by the same kinds of problems as Mexico: political disorganization, spatial disparity, and varied (even dissenting) mindsets. The notion that Mexico lost the war to the U.S. because of political infighting is simplistic at best. Likewise, the assumption of U.S. unity and hegemony (or hegemonic interests/goals) may reflect a taking at face value of primary source material and also

. . .
reflects an understanding shaped by modern points of view – a projection of today’s ideas onto a war that occurred over 150 years ago. Despite the co-editors’ desire to understand the war in a new light, many of the articles fall prey to the same mistakes of their predecessors, imposing modern notions of development/underdevelopment and after-the-fact knowledge to their reinterpretations of the conflict. Thus, the book is set up as an anthology, with articles from viewpoints ranging from (perhaps ironically) military concerns during the war to high-level geopolitics to journalism and artistic movements, from a variety of contributing authors from Mexico and Texas (and one from Illinois). Was the war a land grab or a race war? Perhaps it was both, but Francaviglia neatly plays on our preconceptions of Anglos as land grabbers and global oppressors, thus placing the U.

Dueling Eagles, co-edited by Richard V. in a class with Great Britain and the other colonial powers. At this point in his article, Francaviglia is successfully painting the picture described in the book’s introduction, of a “true intercultural frontier rather than a demarcated barrier”, both by describing Alta California as a “distant northern frontier” and by illustrating the Anglo-Mexican tensions. -Mexican War”, by co-editor Francaviglia, sets the tone for the articles to come by imposing his retrospective knowledge from the beginning. -Mexican War in the middle 1840’s, Mexico’s northern frontier was disintegrating under the pressure of Anglo-American intrusion and the internal difficulties faced by Mexico in managing this distant northern frontier from Mexico City.

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US-Mexican War, Alta California, Douglas Richmond, Illinois Despite, Washington Mexico, Mexico City, Nevermind Mexico-US, us-mexican war, , Dueling Eagles, northern frontier, distant northern, war book, primary sources, mexico city, distant northern frontier,

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A Critical Review of _Dueling Eagles_, Francaviglia et al.

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