Mexico, Interrupted: Labor, Idleness, and the Economic Imaginary of Independence (Critical Mexican Studies)

By: Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón

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Synopsis: Mexican independence was, in a sense, an economic event. Through economic concerns, elites created a common ground with non-elites in their demands against foreign domination, and independence was imagined by the lettered men of Mexico as a feat that would nationalize a rich and productive economic apparatus. Mexico, Interrupted investigates these economic hopes during the difficult decades between 1821, the year of the country&’s definite separation from Spain, and 1852, a period of political polarization after the US-Mexico War that led the country to the brink of another armed conflict. Drawing on political and popular media, this book studies the Mexican intelligentsia&’s obsession with labor and idleness in their attempts to create a wealthy, independent nation. Focusing on figures of work and its opposites, Mexico, Interrupted reconstructs these decades&’ &“economic imaginaries of independence&”: the political and cultural discourses that structured understandings, beliefs, and fantasies of the relationship between &“the economy&” and the life of an independent polity. By bringing together intellectual history, critical theory, and cultural studies, Gutiérrez Negrón offers a new account of the Mexican nineteenth century and complicates the history of the &“spirit of capitalism&” in the Americas.