“Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata is essential reading for those interested- in Mexican politics and history the Mexican Left, peasant movements and women's history.” — Helga Baitenmann, Journal of Latin American Studies
“Rural Resistance is an important contribution to Mexican historiography. It provides a nuanced picture of an eighty-year revolutionary project through an exploration of its underbelly. . . . Padilla’s work shifts the focus from culture and identity to the process of sustained struggle that marked the supposed pax Priista, thereby opening up a new interpretation of the era.” — Patricia Harms, Canadian Journal of History
“Although the book is deliberately tailored to an audience aware of the debates within Mexican historiography, its graphic explanation of the mechanisms of state repression mean that it could be read in conjunction with other texts on the Cold War in Latin America or for a course on Mexican history. Overall, it is an extremely valuable addition to the field and should spark debate and hopefully more research on this understudied era.”
— Benjamin Smith, Social History
“In her excellent study of the agrarian movement led by Rubén Jaramillo in Zapata’s home state of Morelos in the 1940s and 1950s, the historian Tanalís Padilla skillfully combines archival research and oral histories to highlight the continuities of rural struggles in Mexico. The result is a valuable corrective to standard accounts that skim over the Jaramillistas, along with the rebellions of Genaro Vázquez and Lucio Cabañas in Guerrero in the 1970s and numerous other mobilizations from below, as anomalous discontinuities.” — Richard Stahler-Sholk, Latin American Perspectives
“Padilla has written a intelligent, perceptive, deeply researched history of an agrarian movement that spanned two decades. . . . Twentieth-century Mexico is replete with stories of resistance, and Padilla has provided an important service in bringing to print the Jaramillistas’ often forgotten history.” — Paul Haber, Agricultural History
“This important book shows how a regional study can change our understanding of a larger national story. . . . Well written and well researched, this book is a model of how to approach recent history. Reading it will benefit anyone interested in the making of modern Mexico.” — Paul Hart, Hispanic American Historical Review
“While Tanalís Padilla provides great insight into the subject of modern rural resistance movements, her study’s real value is how it connects the state’s crushing of the Jaramillistas to the decline of the Mexican revolution and the corresponding embrace of neo-liberalism and NAFTA by Mexico’s governing classes.” — Norman Caulfield, International Review of Social History
"Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata is essential reading for those interested- in Mexican politics and history the Mexican Left, peasant movement and women's history." — Helga Baitenman, Journal of Latin American Studies
“Rural Rebellion is a valuable contribution to our understanding of this less-studied era of Mexican rural history. It is a well-researched and engaging book that should stimulate great interest among scholars of Mexican history, more generally, Latin Americanists and researcher of rural social movements and insurrections.” — Lynn Horton, Mobilization
“[Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata] is valuable, pioneering. . .significantly advances debate on the fundamental nature of postrevolutionary Mexico.” — Paul Gillingham, The Americas
“[A] nuanced and well-written book. . . . Padilla’s recognition both of the flaws in the single party system and the prolonged resistance to it helps complicate any neat division between an orderly period of industrial growth and relative social peace from 1940-1968, and one of prolonged crisis that followed. This book should be required reading for scholars wishing to think more deeply about such issues.” — Samuel Brunk, A Contracorriente
“It is tempting to ask whether anything ‘new’ can possibly be added to the ‘new’ cultural history of Mexico, but Padilla delivers. . . . [N]early all of the powerful histories that have transformed our understanding of Mexico in recent years either conclude around 1940 or begin after 1968. This leaves a substantial gap, and Padilla’s book goes a long way to fill it. . . . As nostalgia for the mythical peace of PRI rule gains force in Mexico this year, Padilla’s reminder could not have come at a better time.” — Aaron Bobrow-Strain, American Historical Review
“Rural Resistance in the Land of Zapata sets a new standard for historical studies of Mexican social protest and state repression after 1940. Drawing on rich campesino testimonies and state surveillance reports, Tanalís Padilla illuminates the seamy underbelly of the ‘Golden Age’ decades, puncturing any lingering, hegemonic notions of the PRI’s ‘perfect dictatorship.’ More than an engrossing and poignant account of the Jaramillistas’ unremitting electoral and insurgent struggles to compel the Official Party to fulfill its agrarian promises, this volume provides critical insights into the nation’s broader political experience and the dynamic nature of Latin American peasant movements.” — Gilbert M. Joseph, co-editor of Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico
“A wonderful example of regional history that is embedded in the history of post–World War II Mexico. Students of agrarian movements, contemporary Mexican history, and the grand drama of peasant struggles over land and social justice will find this book obligatory reading.” — Barry Carr, author of Marxism and Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico