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Independence and Revolution in The

AmericasGuy Emer son

a& John Minns

a

a Aust ral ian Nat ional Universit y

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To cite this article: Guy Em erson & John Minns (2011): Indep endence and Revolut ion i n TheAmer icas, Journal of Iberian and Lat in Ameri can Research, 17:2, 129-130

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Introduction: Independence and Revolution in The Americas

Guy Emerson and John Minns

Australian National University

The articles in this special edition of the Journal of Iberian and Latin American

Research began as papers presented at two conferences held at the Australian National

University in 2010. One was the Ninth Biennial Conference of the Association of

Iberian and Latin American Studies of Australasia (AILASA) under the theme ofIndependence: Two Centuries of Struggle. The other was titled Mexico: Revolution

and Beyond. The AILASA conference marked a very significant occasion for those

involved in Iberian and Latin American Studies: the bicentenary of independence

from Spain for five Latin American countriesArgentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico

and Venezuela. In a broader sense the year 1810 also represented the beginnings of

struggles which finally led to independence for all of the possessions of Spain in the

Americas and, later, those of Portugal. Mexico: Revolution and Beyond, marked the

centenary of the beginning of the Mexican revolution, a period of huge and violent

upheaval that resulted eventually in a ruling party which maintained its grip on power

for over seventy years.Both commemorations involved great historic turning points which shaped the future.

Along with the French and American revolutions of the late 18th century, Latin American

independence helped to transform world politics in the centuries to come. Independence

in Latin America also had a profound impact on the once-great empires based in the

Iberian Peninsula. It underlined their continuing decline in relation to more economically

advanced European rivals. The conference on the Mexican revolution also highlighted a

major struggle, although one with more local importance. The Mexican revolution was

one of the most bloody of all time and was the first successful revolution of the twentieth

century. It brought onto the stage of history millions of the Mexican poor attempting to

impose their revolutionary agenda for social change onto what began as a

bourgeois liberal attempt at reform. It helped to create a notion of the heroic rebel,

gun in hand, fighting for the dispossessed, an image which persists in zapatismo in

Mexico even today.

Yet both major upheavalscritical as they were in reshaping the positions of states

and social classeseventually brought great disillusionment. Bolvars dream of a unified

stateGran Colombiacollapsed amid rivalry between regional elites. Moreover,

political independence did not transform Latin Americas place in the world. Economic

dependence remained; intervention by European great powers and especially by the

United States continued. Mexicos revolution laid the basis for what Mario Vargas Llosa

labelled the perfect dictatorship. However, both great historic eventsthe struggle for

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Journal of Iberian and Latin American Research

Vol. 17, No. 2, December 2011, 129130

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Latin American independence and the fight for domestic social justicerepresented

attempts to reshape the nations of Latin America and to reposition them in the world.

These are attempts which continue even today. The papers in this edition all deal with

aspects of this process of reshaping and repositioning, both in the realm of ideas and in

contemporary political struggle.

130 G. Emerson and J. Minns

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