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Erika Pani, "Torn Asunder: Republican Crises and Civil Wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867" (UNC Press, 2025)
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A
Welcome to the New Books Network.
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D
Hello and welcome back to New Books in the American West, a channel on the New Books Network of podcasts. I'm Steve Housman. I'm an assistant professor of history at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, and I am your host for today's interview and for this episode. I'm speaking with Erika Pani. Dr. Pani is a research professor at Colegio de Mexico, and we'll be discussing her New book, Torn Republican Crises and Civil wars in the United states and Mexico, 1848-1867, which came out with the University of North Carolina Press as part of their David J. Weber series in Borderlands History. And it came out just earlier this year in 2025. Welcome to the New Books Network. Erica, good to have you here today.
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E
Thank you. Sti. I'm so glad to be with you today.
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D
Why don't we start, as we always do on this show, by just hearing a little bit about who you are. I'm very interested in what your background is, and I'd love in particular to hear how you got interested in studying history.
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E
Well, I was born and raised in Mexico City, have loved history since I can remember. I think that it has to do with having had wonderful teachers in school, then in college, I thought that I had to be practical. So I was a government major, worked in the public sector for a very little while after graduation and then decided to go back to school and get a history degree. And I have been very, very happy since then.
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D
I talked to a lot of scholars and asked them that question. And I hear a lot of people say the same thing, that it's like a really good, really powerful teacher or group of teachers that they had at very kind of young age that kind of set them on this path. So let's hear for history teachers out there doing, doing the work.
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E
Absolutely.
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D
I'm curious also, what brought you to the topic of the book that we're talking about here today?
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E
Well, so I'm kind of obsessed with 19th century politics, which I think really set down the assumptions of what good government is that we still live with and I think tried to live up with, tried to live up to and were not really able to do so. But. And my doctoral thesis was on Mexico's second Empire. And it tried to look at this period, which is usually thought of as exotic and having nothing to do with Mexican tradition being imposed by the French intervention, et cetera. Trying to look at it a little bit different, differently, and trying to see why Mexican politicians, some Mexican politicians actually thought, you know, bringing an Austrian archduke to govern over Mexico was not a bad idea on the, in, you know, in the aftermath of a, of a foreign, of a foreign invasion. And after that exercise, I wanted to look at the decades that preceded the, the empire, which were very turbulent decades of crisis, of war. So what in Mexico is called the War of The reform, the 1857 Constitution and the 150th anniversary of both the Mexican Civil War and the U.S. civil War and the French intervention in Mexico came along. 2011. Not 2011. 20. Between 2011 and 2014. And I was very lucky to be invited to participate in these very exciting conversations about the international dimension of these conflicts. Don Doyle organized this wonderful colloquium in Columbia, South Carolina. Frank Towers in Calgary, Canada. Matthew Karp at Princeton. And talking to my colleagues and learning about this very exciting research that they were doing, I kind of realized that there were a lot of things that you could see if you thought about this period in a broader context and comparatively, and maybe trying to find not only parallel developments, but also connections. And that kind of got me into this idea of writing the two histories of the two North American Republican civil wars together. And I was also encouraged by my colleagues, which I very much appreciate. And that's what got me into this book project, which took much, much longer than I thought it would. But it's finally, the book is out.
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D
Isn't that always the case, too? Of course. Yeah. And this is the kind of book where, as I was reading it, these are my favorite kind of history books, where it's someone writing very eloquently about a topic that you never really noticed or thought about before. But then when you start reading it, it seems so obvious. Of course, these two moments in the history of these two republics should be put next to each other. Of course, there's a ton of commonalities and fascinating differences between them. Yeah, you really shed light on something that should have been really obvious, but just, at least to me, had not been before.
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E
Yeah, it's. And it's obvious to the people who are, you know, immersed in these very complicated processes. And it's surprising that we think of the two neighboring nations as so different, which, of course they are, but have kind of not seen many of the things that they have in common, many of the problems that historically, its citizens have faced.
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D
Yeah. Well, let's get into the story that you tell here. And you begin the book in 1848, which is, of course, one of those kind of noteworthy years in world history. And you work in the book to kind of bring together multiple strands of events into a coherent narrative, all of which kind of begin or had this kind of critical juncture in 1848. So tell us about this year in the history that you're telling here, 1848 being, as you call it, a remarkable year of continental crisis. How is that the case?
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E
So when we think about 1848, I think that the first thing we think about is the European, the European revolution, the springtime of the peoples, these very striking images of barricades and the streets of Paris and insurrections in the German cities, these processes that went from the North Atlantic to the Urals transformed Europe very briefly. Founding of republics, national movements, the abolition of serfdom, et cetera. And I think that these fascinating images kind of blind us to the huge transformation that is going on in North America, which is basically a geopolitical territorial transformation. After the war between the U.S. and Mexico, Mexico loses half of its territory and the US becomes a continental nation for having gotten all this land. And, and this has very profound effects on the national conscience, if you want to call it that, and on national, national politics. So what we're going to see is a dispute about what comes next that eventually will lead the two, the two nations involved onto civil war, onto a collapse of politics and to civil war.
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D
And as you're kind of pointing to, you know, the years after 1840, the 1850s, see lead ups and build ups to civil war in both North American republics. So let's talk about these two nations and their paths to civil, to civil conflict. They're their paths to war. How are they similar? And then in what ways are there these important differences between them and their lead ups to civil war?
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E
So what they have in common is a polarization of politics. Now the common ground, the common language, the basic agreements that make politics possible grow increasingly. This common ground grows increasingly narrower and political actors start thinking about violence as the only way to resolve these growing conflicts. One might say secession is actually flight rather than fight. But eventually secession also brings about civil war. In Mexico, civil war breaks out in January of 1858, in the US in April of 1861. But you do have this growing tensions that make politics increasingly different. The Constitution doesn't seem to be resolving these conflicts. The political parties aren't digesting these problems that confront these differences of opinion, of vision of what the future of the nation should be. And that eventually brings about the collapse of the republic and the outbreak of civil war. The issues that are pulling political community apart are very different. On the one hand, you have in the US slavery and its extension into the conquered territories and what that means for the future of the nation. And there is no meaning despite all these efforts. Not the 1850 compromise, the dred Scott decision, which is a horrible decision, but it is no, the Supreme Court is trying to fix. This conflict which seems to become ever greater and unavoidable with a constitutional solution which is giving one of the parties saying that that's what the Constitution says and that's what should settle the dispute. So despite all these efforts, in the case of Mexico, this proposal of having a bipartisan, a two party system that will, you know, change, have the government be in the hands of the, of those who want progress and those who want to keep tradition and to have them one follow the other and balance each other out, that is a complete failure. The establishment of authoritarian government, that is also a failure. And a new constitution, which is actually what breaks the possibility of ordinary politics and brings about civil war. So as I was saying, what makes the two conflicts very different is on the one hand, slavery in the U.S. in Mexico, what is really troubling part of the political class is what to do with God in the republic, what to do especially with the Catholic Church in a country which has conceived itself as a Catholic republic since its founding. So that is part of those are the two issues that I think are very different, but the processes of erosion and of collapse are similar.
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D
Another move that you make in the book that I really appreciate and enjoyed reading is taking seriously the two failed experiments in government that you see at the kind of the core of these two civil conflicts. And in the book you draw comparisons between the Confederate States of America and the conservative governments of 1860s Mexico. And again, both these experiments in governance, they fail, but the people involved in them at the time don't know that they're going to fail. And of course, they're operating based on the assumption that these will be lasting institutions of power and governance. And you argue in the book that we have to take those people seriously, that we can learn a whole lot about mid 19th century North America and North American politics by taking these two governments seriously and by looking at them next to each other. So tell us a little bit about these two governments and as you say, the possibilities of politics in these republics during this era of crisis.
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E
So not only do they think that these visions and these institutions of government are viable and that they can last at least for a while, they think that they're the only way they can save the republic, that the proposal of the adversary which has now become the enemy will lead the Republic into the abyss and to the destruction. In the case of Mexico, the Republic will become part of the United States and the Mexican race, I'm putting that in quotation marks, will disappear from the face of the earth. And again, they reach out for these very radical solutions to preserve what they think is essential to a good, to a good commonwealth. So even though the outcomes Are very different. On the one hand, the Confederates create a new nation from scratch With a constitution that looks very much like the one that they decided that they could not no longer live under. In the case of Mexico, a dictatorial military government in the first instance, Then the restoration of a monarchical regime with the help of the French, the French Napoleonic empire, which is kind of looking for a way to restore its presence in the. In the new world, which it practically lost when it sold. When it sold Louisiana to the. To the United States. But these two governments are founded on what I think is the deeply held belief of these politicians who want to be the architects of the nation, that society has natural social hierarchies, that these hierarchies were designed by God and that men should not mess with what God has set down, which, in the case of the slave states, includes human bondage. So taking these politicians seriously, I think, is very instructive. It is sometimes quite uncomfortable. But I do think that we learn about how these men. Because and especially men and women of this time period, Looked at the world and thought about the possibilities of going forward and what blind spots shaped and limited what could be done in the public sphere and state building. So they prized stability, they prized keeping these structures whole. And what this implied was stepping away from politics. Now, politics was thought of as disruptive, as corrupting and trying to guarantee peace and order, which also would lead to economic prosperity. And here, in the case of the southern confederates, they want to preserve order. In the case of Mexican conservative and then imperialist politicians, they want to create order. Mexico has, since its independence, Had a very hard time building a state that could be strong enough and stable enough to be able to face both foreign intervention. The crisis of conscience that was unleashed by defeat in the Mexican American war Was profoundly traumatic. And also be able to respond to domestic insurrection and maintain order throughout the nation, not to lose a piece of the nation, as they had in Texas, as they practically. As practically happened with Yucatan, which established an independent government, I'm sorry, in the 40s. And eventually become a modern nation with economic. With economic development. But they tried to step away from politics While at the same time preserve the assumptions, the basic principles of modern politics. Also, these regimes were supposed to be based on popular sovereignty. There had to be some sort of political representation, so elections, newspapers, et cetera, and to preserve the rights of the citizenry. So you have a lot of deep contradictions and tensions that make the workings of these regimes quite problematic, but still fascinating to look at.
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D
What about the moment after the Civil wars. The wars, of course, end in both of these republics. And the nations are faced with a challenge. How do we rebuild? How do we reconstruct our government and our society after these pretty monumental conflicts? What do we do with the opposition, with the people that are still in the nation that we recently just fought against? So how do lawmakers and leaders on both sides of the Rio Grande, how do they see their job and their position? And how do they tackle these questions as the reconstructions begin in the late 1860s?
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E
So this is a fascinating question. How was the. How was the Republic reconstructed? In the case of the U.S. no, that's what we call the historical period, reconstruction. And in the case of Mexico, how was the Republic restored? Hopefully, this is something that we will explore with some colleagues. Ariel Ron at SMU and I are trying to put together, thanks to the Clemens Center Symposium, a book on this period. And we have a chapter on Mexico and a chapter on the US on the different issues that we think are particularly salient. But there is this fascinating experience of how do you bring together nations that have been torn apart, a Humpty Dumpty that is broken into many pieces, and we have to put him back together. And on both sides of the border, these leaders will reach out for the instruments of republican governance. Also, I think in the very center constitutional renewal, in the case of Mexico, it is a new constitution which is radical in the Mexican constitutional tradition, which actually proceeds the collapse into Civil War, the 1857 Constitution, and in the case of the U.S. these very important amendments, the 13th, the 14th and the 15th amendments. But there's also, I think, this idea that politics has in some way to be the continuation of the war, kind of putting Clausewitz on his, on his head. And you have to guarantee access to power of the citizens and in the case of the US of those who have been emancipated from slavery, and that the ones who won the war are the ones who are right. And that that is the vision that should, that should guide American U.S. politics and Mexican politics henceforth. Republicans on both sides of the border know the party of Republicans that identifies itself as Republicans on both sides of the border strengthen the federal government. No, the federal government becomes the guardian of constitutional rights and has the authority to act throughout the national territory. The fact that is citizens going to court to claim that their rights are being violated and asking for redress kind of tones down what can be done. And in the case of the U.S. i think that the series of decisions made by the Reconstruction Supreme Court limit the reach of what this new freedom, this new freedom, these new rights mean. But there is this, I think, consolidation of the nation state as the model that will work. And that I think is recognizable to us even today. And what is interesting is that the same thing happens in Canada with confederation. But on the other hand, they do on both sides of the border. They have to navigate these politics of reform, of constitutional renewal with resistance to change. Now there was a civil war because an important part of the nation, they thought that this political vision, which has been radicalized by war, was not necessarily what the nation needed and was even in some cases thought as very dangerous. So how do you try to not completely alienate those you have defeated because they are now they were the enemy and now they are your compatriots and citizens in the same republic. So the difficulties implied by military reconstruction, which is basically military occupation of the south, and the tensions that arise from that, the presence of, I would say, very different degrees of commitment to reform within the Republican, the Republican Party makes this perhaps paradoxically more difficult in the US Than in Mexico. In Mexico, the conservatives are completely obliterated because they are set up as traitors to the nation because they allied themselves with this foreign intervention that brought a foreign prince to govern over Mexicans and prolonged the civil war and provoked the death of so many Mexicans. So the execution of Maximilian with his two conservative, with his two conservative generals, which is a very striking image which traveled around the world thanks to Edouard Manet's portrayal of it in this huge canvas, I think makes it easier for Mexican Republicans to say this is a new beginning and these are the new rules. This is the shape of the playing field that we will move around on. And I think there's less compromise expected than there is in the Reconstruction, in the Reconstruction in the United States.
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D
Wars also change nations, obviously, especially wars of this magnitude that involve people, as you were just saying, that then have to live together afterwards. In many cases, they're big deals. They make a lot of changes in the nations in question. So I have kind of a two part question for you. You spend a couple chapters in the middle of the book talking about the changes to law and the changes to economics that emerge from these two civil wars. So kind of briefly, how do the legal regimes and the economic regimes in both the United States and Mexico change because of these large scale conflicts in the 1860s?
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E
Well, I think that the legal changes, the, these new constitutions. Should we call it a second founding? I think that we can discuss that issue, but it's Definitely there's a new set of rules on the ground which centralize political power, which create a national citizenry in a way that is more dramatic in the US with the 14th amendment than in Mexico, where you do have the idea of a national city and the legislation for national citizenship since the 1830s. But there is, I think, this consolidation of the nation state as the actor, the central actor in politics with economics. I think that that's where one of the, where the experiences are more dissimilar because of the scale. The US Civil War is a modern war which puts millions of men on the field, which creates, enhances the fiscal capacity of the Union government, which brings about some version of mass industrialized production which introduces a national paper currency. Mexico's drawn out, very violent, very destructive and deadly war, which lasts in a more intermittent fashion a decade, does not bring about these very profound economics transformations. There are efforts to increase, to tax, to control the territory, which do not work because both governments that are contending in the Civil War do not have the resources in either material or I would say even not only the money, but the arms, the presence on the ground, et cetera. So I would say that the US emerges from the war with a profoundly different economic makeup. And Mexico comes out of the war with this destruction which is also present in the U.S. especially in the, what used to be the Confederate. Well, not especially, almost exclusively in the Confederate States. And in Mexico you don't have this very dynamic war economy to kind of compensate for this, for this destruction. Now you do have small efforts for the producing arms, cannons, et cetera, but they are very small scale. The one exception I think to this is the lack of modernization, the lack of a profound transformation of the economy in Mexico is in the Northeast. But it has more to do with the US Civil War than with the Mexican Civil War. The fact that the Confederacy exported it's cotton along the Rio Bravo Grande creates a very dynamic market in the Northeast and the states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas and generates a lot of money. And that money will be used in the decades that follow the restoration of the Republic to establish an industrial complex with, they make, I'm sorry, steel, which is probably Mexico's vanguard of an industrialization process by the end of the 19th century. And that capital comes in part, not all of it, but in an important proportion from the profits made during the US Civil War. This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan, real United Airlines customers.
- [34:09]
C
We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if He.
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E
Wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew. I got to sit in the driver's seat.
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C
I grew up in an aviation family, and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.
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D
That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future.
- [34:27]
E
It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight.
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C
Deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way.
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F
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D
Spotify and maybe the last major change to discuss here as a result of these conflicts is the relationship between the United States and Mexico themselves. Like I was saying before, this is a book that's all about taking people in the past and their visions for the future and how they saw themselves in their world very seriously and not trying to impose, you know, too much of our own views upon them. So how did people at the time see these republican experiences? Did Were people in the moment also sort of seeing these two republics as on, you know, similar paths or as experiencing similar crises? And after these wars end, how are the United States and Mexico relating to one another?
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E
Yes, I think that is a fascinating question. On the one hand, because what memory has done with the US Mexico relationship during this period, There is this idea that the two republics came together because of republican solidarity. And the people at the time definitely saw the French invasion of Mexico as part of this major global conflict in which revolution was trying to defeat reaction, in which the future was trying to put away the past that is very influenced by the 1848 revolutions. This idea that Benito Juarez and Abraham Lincoln were very good friends and that they kind of were walking together towards the same path towards progress and democracy, et cetera. And then to look at the complexity of the relationship of two neighboring nations during war and how that changed this very asymmetrical relationship, which kept being very asymmetrical, and I would say asymmetry would increase during and after the war, especially because of the astounding transformation of the US Economy once the Civil War. Once the Civil War was over, but Mexico and the US Went from being, I would say, enemies in terms of Mexico having lost half of its territory to through a war which they Mexicans thought of and still think of as a war of conquest, which was profoundly unfair to the binational relationship being reshaped. And the importance of territorial acquisition, territorial expansion, which is at the center of the binational agenda for the US from the beginning of Mexican independence to not only the 1840s, culminating with 1848 and the Mexican session, but throughout the 50s and even when Abraham Lincoln is elected and comes to power, there is this idea on both sides that there is an ideological sympathy and that the relations between Mexico and the US will be friendlier and more productive. But still. Thomas Garwin, who was a critic of the Mexico War, is named minister to Mexico City, which is seen as a wonderful sign by Mexican diplomats and politicians. And Thomas Corwin is a very nice person in Mexico City and he is very worried about European intervention and wants the US to do something, lend the Mexicans money to try to keep Europe at bay. But Corwin and the Lincoln administration are still thinking about acquiring Mexican territory either in the north or the Baja California peninsula. So territorial acquisition and territorial expansion is still on the agenda for the US and that changes with the war. But even though people see this conflict as this global confrontation between revolution and reaction, between democracy and tyranny, et cetera, diplomacy kind of squelches the possibilities of these, of what the implications of this shared vision would be, which is no. An alliance against, not the alliance of the progressives against the reactionaries. Swords. Well, the Lincoln administration and William Seward priority is to keep the European powers out of the US Civil war so they will insist on neutrality. The Mexican minister in Washington, which is this wonderful diplomat called Matias Romero, who is also key to understanding the history of the relationship between Mexico and the United States States will, you know, try to do everything to get, to get the, the Lincoln government to at least. No, he, he says if you're going to be neutral, be even handed. So if the Mexicans can't buy arms, the French should not be able to buy carts and horses and, and, and foodstuffs. Etc. And what, what Romero is going to do is he's going to sidestep the Lincoln administration and forge alliances with the more radical Republicans who will constantly bug the Lincoln administration to take a position that is an effective opposition to the French presence in Mexico. Which I think explains why once the war is over, the State Department will be no, will keep on being quite prudent and will not be emphatic in its opposition to the French presence in Mexico until December of 1865. But you do have Philip Sheridan parading his troops along the border and intimidating the French and the conservative armies, leaving arms on the border where Mexican Republicans can, can take them. And this rhetoric of putting the Monroe Doctrine at the center of US foreign policy, which I think and Jay Sexton and others have spoken about this, know how this is when the Monroe Doctrine really becomes a doctrine with the help, I would say, of Latin American politicians who are telling Washington that Washington needs to ensure that the Europeans do not bring their decrepit, old fashioned politics into the New World. So at the end of the war and once Maximilian empire, Maximilian's empire falls, the relationship between Mexico and the US becomes normalized. Once territorial expansion is not on the menu anymore, Mexico and the US can treat each other as they treat other nations. So the relationship will still be very uneven and asymmetrical. But Mexicans can deal with the US knowing that the US is not going to swallow another four states in the future. What I think embodies this is that claims between claims by Mexican citizens against the US and claims by US citizens against Mexico will not be leveraged to obtain a more advantageous position in the diplomatic relationship, but they will be solved as problems with citizen claims with the French and citizen claims with the British through a claims commission. And I think that that illustrates how the relationship with Mexico is a relationship that will be dealt with with the same instruments and hopefully similar attitudes to the US relationship with other countries, including the European powers.
- [44:21]
D
So this book ends in the late 1860s, just as the rebuilding and reconstruction and revitalization efforts are getting underway in both nations. And while you don't bring this story that much further forward, I'm curious if you think that you could bring the story forward if this book or the story that you tell here has kind of an afterlife after the late 1860s. Are the experiences of these two republics, do they carry through throughout the rest of the 19th century? How similar are their stories going forward? Where do they diverge? And what explains these similarities and differences? Can you trace those, the roots of them, into this kind of moment, this 20 year period of crisis?
- [45:02]
E
That's a great question. And I do hope that with the help of my colleagues who are experts in different dimensions of the historical experience, that this will come through in this project, this collective project that we're thinking about. But on the other hand, I do think that North America makes sense as a stage for historical processes in this 20 year period of crisis, and that it kind of starts to come apart after these crises are resolved. There is this brief Republican, let's call it a honeymoon in which the rhetoric will speak of sister republics of Seward will visit Mexico, William Bryan will visit Mexico. The Mexican government will translate Eduardo's history of the U.S. no. There's a lot of looking over the border and trying to think that they're going through similar, similar experiences. But the relationship between the US and Mexico does not become more intimate and material. It doesn't materialize into more intense economic relationships because of the Mexico kind of falling behind what the US economy is doing. So even though the Mexican government does not recognize the powers that recognize Maximilian's government, so they break relations with most of the European powers. It'll take a very long time for them to be rebuilt. No, in the case of France, it's not until the end, until the 1880s. So the US and the other American republics are at the center of the Mexican diplomatic agenda. But the relationship remains in these diplomatic, in the realms of diplomacy and not so much in the realm of human exchanges and population movements, et cetera. And we will have to wait for the last two decades of the 19th century when with US investment and the railroads and mining, that's trans border activity, we will see an intensification of the relationship between the two republics which kind of re articulate a common history. So you do have a common history because they're neighbors, because they're republics, because they're dealing with some of the same problems. But I would say it is less intense than it was during these 20 years of crisis. But I don't know, maybe we'll discover that they weren't. They were just as intense, but maybe more discreet.
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D
Sounds like a great idea for a sequel book, honestly. So as we begin to wrap up here, I always like to ask my guests, as kind of a summary question to imagine themselves rather than as the author of this book, instead as someone that has read this book and then puts it back on the shelf and kind of forgets about it for a few weeks or maybe a year or two, and then thinks back on this book. What would you hope this reader, what idea or what sort of major point or takeaway would you hope this reader would come away from this book? Understanding and remembering?
- [49:13]
E
Can there be two things that they.
- [49:15]
D
Can just this once I'll allow. Yeah, there definitely be two. That's fine.
- [49:19]
E
Thank you.
- [49:20]
D
Yes.
- [49:20]
E
Well, one thing is that even when national experiences are profoundly different, when, when I talk about doing comparative work with, with the US and Mexico colleagues Reactions are kind of guarded. And you know, aren't you comparing apples and oranges and aren't you comparing chickens and alligators? You know, well, where would, where will this take you? And I think that similarities can be. First of all, there are a lot of things that we share across the border in terms of political experience, in terms of building these political communities that do not have a transcendent foundation or that they are created by people coming together and deciding to live together under the same government and, and law. And then differences can also be very useful to understand where things are, what is making things tick differently. So to think about the US and Mexico as less foreign to each other than one might think, because in terms of language, in terms of economic development, they're so obviously different. Maybe not so not so much. And then the other is just the nature of the republic. The republic as on the one hand a fragile thing because it is held together by the will of very different people with very different interests, with very different ideas that decide to come together and form a political regime. But also its resilience, the fact that the possibilities of popular sovereignty allow for both conservation and change in response to context, and that it is an open ended effort that, that one needs to work on. This is going to sound very corny, but that we need as citizens, we need to work on every day. But the possibilities are, you know, practically endless. There's less things holding republics back, I would say, than perhaps other, than perhaps other regimes.
- [52:11]
D
Yeah, you know, you don't want to draw too much comparison between the mid 19th century and here in the early 21st century, because obviously context can be so different and all the stuff that historians like to point out. But at the same time, that was one of the big takeaways for me, is that, you know, this is a really good case study in what happens when republics see a kind of wave of reaction or a wave of, you know, strong conservatism, or a wave of people thinking that the politics of republic can no longer sort of abide the problems that the nation is facing, which is not too dissimilar from what we're seeing around the world today with this wave of people questioning republican and democratic small R, small D values as well. So, yeah, I saw some comparisons to today, even if you don't want to pull them too far.
- [53:06]
E
Yeah, no, I agree. And I hope that at least we can think about things being possibly different just because of what we see in the past. We know things can move around in a lot of different and interesting ways.
- [53:22]
D
Yeah, yeah. And then finally, Erica, I always like to ask my guests what they're working on next. Now, I know that this book has only been out for several months at this point, but, you know, historians usually have a couple pots on the boil at any one time. So I'm curious if there's any new projects that you would like to talk about or maybe just give us a little preview of.
- [53:43]
E
So there is that collective effort around the restoration, reconstruction of the Republic. And then Ed Countryman, who was such a lovely colleague, read the manuscript at some point, it wasn't finished, but he said, you know, you really need some people in there. You need some stories. And it's true that I focused on law and constitution and party and then violence. So I'm really excited to work on a person. And it's this fascinating author, novelist who is. Her name is Mariam Paro Ruiz de Burto, who has been. She was born in Baja California during the Mexico U.S. war, her family sought the protection of U.S. troops. So when the war ended and Baja California remained as a Mexican territory, they had to be evacuated. They went to California, and she married the commanding officer who had led U.S. troops in LA Paz, became very close to the Californio members of the Californio elite, and then wrote two novels and the play. So she, I think, is a fascinating. She's a fascinating person in just the way her life worked out, but also I think, an excellent example of how Mexico and the US Are connected and Mexicans and Americans move around in these spaces and make sense of them and intervene in them. So that's who I want to work on next. She has been. It's interesting, American scholarship is strong on her especially. She's seen as a precursor of Mexican American literature in Mexico. She's practically unknown. There's a very good master's thesis on her. So I kind of want to write a political intellectual biography of her.
- [56:08]
D
I would love to read that. And when it's out, we'll have to have you back on the show.
- [56:12]
E
Yeah, that would be wonderful.
- [56:15]
D
Dr. Erika Pani is a research professor at El Colegio de Mexico. Her new book is Torn Republican Crises and Civil wars in the United states and Mexico, 1848-1867, which came out with the University of North Carolina Press earlier this year in 2025. Thank you so much for joining me today, Erika.
- [56:36]
E
No, thank you, Steve. It was a wonderful chat.