| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 107.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Caribbean and Latin America

Will Fowler. Tornel and Santa Anna: The Writer and the Caudillo, Mexico 1795–1853. (Contributions in Latin American Studies, number 14.) Westport, Conn.: Greenwood. 2000. Pp. xv, 308. $69.50.

The first decades of Mexico's existence as an independent republic were known as the age of Antonio López de Santa Anna. But Santa Anna, as Will Fowler notes, did not read books and needed someone to compose his pronouncements. This was José María Tornel y Mendívil (1795–1853). He served as minister of war six times, usually when Santa Anna was president, all the while acting as Santa Anna's eyes and ears in Mexico City and organizing revolutions for him when needed. Tornel was in the thick of things in Mexico's first thirty years as a nation, and in his conversion from enthusiastic York rite federalist in the 1820s to heavy-handed supporter of centralism in the 1830s, he mirrored the national transition from great expectations to political despair. 1

Some of the more intriguing parts of the book deal with the political formation of Tornel as young student who obtained an education that was good enough for him later to translate works in several languages, compose political declarations larded with classical allusions, and write a play entitled The Death of Cicero. Captured as a young man fighting against the Spaniards in the War of Independence, he managed to stay alive while his fellow rebels were being executed when it was learned he was the son of Don Julian. His captor sent him—unescorted—to plead his case to Viceroy Félix María Calleja del Rey. Spared by Calleja del Rey, he was placed under house arrest in different colleges where his status gradually shifted from prisoner to student. . . .

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