Introduction
Santa Anna of Mexico is a study of the life of an influential politician of the nineteenth century who played an important role in shaping independent Mexico. It is structured as a biography, starting with his early years and ending with his death. Significant attention is put on the formative influences on his personality and the impact he had on Mexico. The purpose of the book is to showcase Santa Anna as a complex historical figure with both noble and destructive qualities. The main idea of the book can be observed in the concluding sentences. As Fowler summarizes: “Santa Anna was a general, a landowner, and a nineteenth-century caudillo who tried to prosper personally and help his country develop at a time of severe and repeated crises” (367). The author is careful in avoiding whitewashing Santa Anna, but he also cautions against blaming the hardships Mexico had to endure on his shoulders alone. Ultimately, Santa Anna had noble intentions, but could not handle the full extent of political, military, and economic obstacles on his own.
I have chosen this book because it sheds light on an important period in Mexican history, which determined the subsequent direction of Mexican history. Furthermore, I dislike oversimplified interpretations of historic events, in which people are portrayed in a strictly positive or negative connotation. A common cultural narrative presents Santa Anna as a flawed politician and incompetent leader who subjected Mexico to years of war. By reading Fowler’s book on him, I have learned to appreciate the complexity of social, economic, and political conditions and not rush to judge. The question that I would like is what lessons can contemporary Mexicans learn from Santa Anna’s mistakes and how to avoid them today.
Work Cited
Fowler, Will. Santa Anna of Mexico. University of Nebraska Press, 2007.