Review

Reviewed Work(s): True Stories of Crime in Modern Mexico by Robert Buffington and
Pablo Piccato
Review by: WILLIAM H. BEEZLEY
Source: Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 43, No. 3 (August 2011), pp. 607-609
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23031095
Accessed: 28-06-2017 01:09 UTC

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 Book Reviews 607

On the whole, the author's pattern of argument about Brazilians' views of the black
continent and themselves stresses self-projection over self-exploration, continuity over
change. In the epilogue, which extends the narrative into the beginning of the twenty
first century, he concludes that 'Africa remained an abstraction in Brazil, a canvas on
which Brazilian national aspirations and racial values were rendered' (p. 155). This
line of interpretation tends to belittle the dynamism and complexity of the attitudes
that he himself describes so well. Underlying this tendency is a dichotomous
interpretation of real versus imagined Africa, as is attested to by the frequent
bracketing of the continent's name and usage of the metaphor of a 'canvas' or 'stage'.
The self-ascribed Africanness of influential white Brazilians is painstakingly
documented, and its emotional authenticity (alongside its instrumental usage) is
acknowledged. Ultimately, though, it is interpreted away as false due to these
Brazilians' ignorance of Africa. The point is that collective identities are by nature
simultaneously both imagined and real. Moreover, as Tzvetan Todorov has noted,
knowledge of the Other operates on a distinct level from love of the Other - they are
not mutually dependent. Yet for Davila, Brazilian love of Africa is problematic also,
above all because it had gone hand in hand with racial discrimination at home. Here
he stands with those who do not see any corrective potential in the belief in racial
democracy, even though his evidence seems to suggest that such potential exists. In this
regard Hotel Tropico should be read in tandem with recent scholarship by Paulina
L. Alberto and others for their complementary approaches.
These reservations aside, this is a solidly researched and colourfully written study,
and its broad geographical and thematic scope should appeal to a wide readership both
within and beyond the confines of Afro- and Luso-Brazilian studies.

Tel Aviv University ORI PREUSS

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 43 (ioii). doi:io.ioi7/Soozzn6Xi 1000654

Robert Bufiington and Pablo Piccato (eds.), True Stories o
Mexico (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press,
$27.95, pb
The editors of this anthology have clearly defined goals. They use crime stories to
discover how Mexican society thinks about itself, by determining how it thinks about
criminals. With this approach, they attend to this society's fears at a particular
moment; they also review how historians have used these fears to write about Mexican
society. In the process, the authors look at three major approaches to crime stories.
They begin with a discussion of Emile Durkheim's arguments in The Rules of
Sociological Method (1893) and his counter-intuitive thesis that crime was a normal
aspect of society and that it served an integrative role. They also rely on David
Garland's sociological introduction to Punishment and Modern Society (1990) to
understand how attitudes about crime shape social perceptions that extend well
beyond the police station, courtroom and prison cell, and they identify the significant
role of the mass media in promoting these views. Moreover, they turn to Jerome
Bruner's approach in his books Acts of Meaning (1990) and The Culture of Education
(1996) as the basis for narrative analysis in order to understand a number of
sensational murders (the editors examine the infamous 1897 murder of one prostitute
by another, called the Tarasquillo Street murder, in particular). Their discussion,
based on these methodological approaches of the social disruption of modernisation,

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608 Book Reviews

urbanisation and development, allows them to assert that 'crime stories helped depict
and make sense of the contractions and conflicts' that existed in this society (p. 33).
The authors conclude after analysis of various official, penny press and criminologist
narratives that the crime stories resulted in a general insecurity rather than confidence
on the part of those who constructed them in order to find, in Bruner's words,
'ontological security' (p. 50).
Streaked through this discussion are references to the 'conscience collective', the
public sphere, Frederic Jameson's 'political unconscious' and Bruner's 'cultural
community' that are used by the editors and the authors as near-synonyms and, often,
as oblique allusions to Anderson's 'imagined community'. For clarity of argument, the
editors might have parsed these labels, sorted their varieties and related them to
Anderson's view, so that readers could better understand the analysis.
Beyond the stimulating introduction with its review of methodologies for
studying crime and discussion of the response to crime in Modern Mexico (using
the periodisation established by Daniel Cosio Villagas, 1867 onward), the collection
includes eight essays that examine sensational crime stories in the Porfirian and
revolution eras. The author of each essay has established an enviable reputation for his
or her scholarship, and the book offers masterful performances by these seasoned
professionals. They are Elisa Speckman, Christina Rivera-Garza, Christopher Boyer,
Renato Gonzalez Mello, Victor Maci'as Gonzalez, Katherine Elaine Bliss and the
editors. The editors reprint their prize-winning essay on the Tarasquillo Street
murder, but otherwise the essays have been written for this volume.
In such a short review as this, Elisa Speckman's contribution will serve as
representative of all the essays. She explores the various interpretations in the
newspapers and broadsheets that were collapsed by the public into the legend of
Jesus Negrete, the so-called Tiger of Santa Julia. The coincidence of the outbreak
of the revolution with several of his crimes allowed some individuals to interpret him
as a social bandit rather than the common criminal depicted in the mainstream
newspapers. The author makes an analysis of the various discussions of his love affairs,
heinous crimes and masterful escapes. After his execution in 1910, his career was
transformed using the social bandit theme to turn his crimes into a form of resistance
to Porfirio Diaz. This resulted in a corrido in the 19x0s, a novel by Carlos Isla in 1999
and two films in 1973 and 2.001. He is even the subject of a mathematics word
problem used by the Mexican Academy of Science: 'In Santa Julia there are
approximately 3,000 residents, and one hour after the Tiger's capture everyone knew
about it. Without writing down numbers, but based on your best guess, say how long
each resident waited before telling three others' (p. 95). These revisionist tales have all
stressed his amorous adventures, and, through promiscuity and adultery, made him a
defender of women. Speckman, as do the other authors, examines the breadth of
sources and, after careful review, discusses the transformation of the various accounts
into a rather coherent crime story.
The exercise as accomplished by the authors allows readers to look over the
shoulder of Mexicans sorting out their own experience and trying to make sense of it.
This is a fascinating endeavour, but it raises the question: is this not in many ways the
informal application of folkloristics to historical episodes? Folklorists write different
conclusions, but their methodologies seem similar enough for historians to look
closely at their techniques.
This is a superb book by an excellent group of scholars, and what weaknesses exist
reflect the evolving characteristics of scholarly publishing in the United States. Three

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 Book Reviews 6 09

examples come quickly to mind. First, publishers that still copy-edit manuscripts (and
there are those who do what has been referred to as 'light-touch' copy-editing) carry
out grammatical and stylistic reviews, not an evaluation of historical content or
consistency. Second, a historical copy-editor would have to ask for clarification
regarding the relationship between the community and collective public labels used
interchangeably throughout the introduction and chapters, and their relationship to
the imagined community interpretation. Moreover, a historical copy-editor, I imagine,
would question the contradictory use of the term 'postrevolutionary' to describe the
revolutionary programmes during the 1920s and 1950s that were carried out by
revolutionary government officials attempting to achieve revolutionary goals. Third, in
the past, endnotes were perhaps justified by costs of production, but contemporary
technology requires no special arrangements for page production, so there is no
justification for notes that are inaccessible to the serious reader. The editors and
authors include significant commentary in informational notes that must be sought
out at the end of each chapter. Publishers should change to footnotes immediately.
These comments notwithstanding, this is an outstanding addition to Mexican
historiography.

University of Arizona WILLIAM H. BEEZLEY

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 43 (1011). doi:io.ioi7/Soo2.zzi6Xi 1000666

Hal Brands, Latin America's Cold War (Cambridge, MA

University Press, 2010), pp. 385, $29.95; 22.95, hb.

Hal Brand's study of the Cold War in Latin America disting

new works on the subject both in its breadth and in some of t
Brand examines events throughout Latin America over the c
decades while drawing on archival sources from 13 different
external actors frequently had far less influence than they ar
that domestic actors and conditions as well as nation-spec
decisive in determining the course of the region's develop
Furthermore, he argues that the Cold War never constitute
rather a conglomerate of conflicts that were the product of
forces. Although he adheres to the scholarly convention of
playing itself out between the 1960s and 1980s, he also o
suggest that the Cold War as traditionally understood effec
the beginning of the 1970s. That final point can be inferred e
Brand engages with some of the events that are usually con
core of Latin America's Cold War.
The author does an impressive job of recounting the e
and fear triggered in the region by the Cuban Revolutio
United States, the Soviet Union and the Castro government i
Brand concludes that neither the Cubans nor their Sov
effective in promoting leftist militancy or guerrilla insurge
same token, Washington's Alliance for Progress, which li
social and economic reforms, had few positive effects. D
civilian politicians like Romulo Bettencourt of Venezuel
officers of Brazil, ultimately had far more say in the outco
marked this iconic era of the Cold War. But Brand's most i

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