The concentration of power in the caudillo (leader) is as much a formative element of Mexican culture and politics as the historical legacy of the Aztec emperors, Cortez, the Spanish Crown, the Mother Church and the mixing of the Spanish and Indian popula
Siglo de caudillos es, en realidad, una biografía colectiva, porque fueron los caudillos en su conjunto los que, en el siglo XIX, encarnaron –para bien y para mal– las tensiones históricas de México. Liberales y conservadores asumieron su posición
An epicintellectual history of Latin America by one of the region’s most prominentthinkersInhis first book to appear in English since Mexico: Biography in Power, awork which the Wall Street Journal calls “the standard history ofpostcolonial Mexico,”