Archaeologists are slowly peeling back the mysteries surrounding the Casas Grandes culture of Mexico, although most of that work has focused on the principal site of Paquimé and its immediate vicinity. In this volume, Jane Kelley and her colleagues probe the southern edge of the Casas Grandes culture area—an area little explored by archaeologists until now. The book provides the first solid foundation for research on prehistoric west-central Chihuahua. Readers will find descriptions of the southern branch of the pottery-making, village-dwelling farmers of the Casas Grandes culture and learn that, as Paquimé became the most complex site in the region, the southern Casas Grandes people mostly held back from the “Paquimé revolution.” The studies presented here confer a more nuanced understanding of the tremendous diversity within one of the region’s great prehistoric cultures, an area that extends unbroken from deep in Mexico north to central Utah. 
 

Did the Mexican Revolution do away with the ruling class of the old regime? Did a new ruling class rise to take the old one's place—and if so, what differences resulted? In this compelling study, the first of its kind, Mark Wasserman pursues these questions through an analysis of the history and politics of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua from 1910 to 1940.
Chihuahua boasted one of the strongest pre-revolutionary elite networks, the Terrazas-Creel family. Wasserman describes this group's efforts to maintain its power after the Revolution, including its use of economic resources and intermarriage to forge partnerships with the new, revolutionary elite. Together, the old and new elites confronted a national government that sought to reestablish centralized control over the states and the masses. Wasserman shows how the revolutionary government and the popular classes, joined in opposition to the challenge of the elites, finally formalized into a national political party during the 1930s.
Persistent Oligarchs concludes with an account of the Revolution's ultimate outcome, largely accomplished by 1940: the national government gaining central control over politics, the popular classes obtaining land redistribution and higher wages, and regional elites, old and new, availing themselves of the great opportunities presented by economic development. A complex analysis of revolution as a vehicle for both continuity and change, this work is essential to an understanding of Mexico and Latin America, as well as revolutionary politics and history.

What happens to a revolutionary town after the revolution? This apparently simple question frames Spent Cartridges of Revolution, an anthropological history of Namiquipa, Chihuahua, Mexico. Officially, the revolution of 1910-20 restored control over land and local politics to the peasantry. But Namiquipan peasants, who fought alongside Pancho Villa, have seen little progress and consider themselves mere "spent cartridges" of a struggle that benefited other classes.

Daniel Nugent's approach combines an emphasis on peasants' own perceptions of Mexican society after the revolution with an analysis of the organization and formation of state power. He shows that popular discontent in Chihuahua is motivated not only by immediate economic crises but by two centuries of struggle between the people of Northern Mexico and the government.