A Critical Review of _Dueling Eagles_, Francaviglia et al.
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
Unfinished, but that's what you get. The first article, "The Geographic and Cartographic Legacy of the U.S.-Mexican War", by co-editor Francaviglia, sets the tone for the articles to come by imposing his retrospective knowledge from the beginning. "Thus, on the eve of the U.S.-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." Already, we see that the U.S. is the powerful aggressor and Mexico is the impotent victim of aggression. Nevermind the fact that the Mexico-U.S. border was roughly equidistant from Mexico City and Washington, it was for Mexico that it was a problematic zone of "intrusion". 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. Was the war a land grab or a r
Some common words found in the essay are:
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,
Approximate Word count = 753
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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