Peter F. Guardino

4.5 stars

I honestly couldn't recall anything about the Mexican-American War when I started this book. That's relevant because I went into reading this without any preconceptions or half remembered high school history lessons.

Guardino does an excellent job of not just reporting the battles and other events that normally make up history books but covers the roles of patriotism and the perception of its lack in Mexico (which wasn't true; Mexicans were just as invested in Mexico as a distinct nation with its own culture, heritage, people, and ideas of how to govern and be governed), the role poverty and economics of both countries especially in regards to military service, the role of racist and anti-Catholic ideology/beliefs, and the nature of regular army versus volunteer army units in both countries.

This is not a history that buys into the idea that USA is the best and that is why they won. "Winning" a war is more than fighting battles and in the end both sides lose because of the loss of life. Both sides committed atrocities but many of the American volunteer units were the most egregious perpetrators. These are not parts of history that get covered in a high school history class.

Guardino does an excellent job of covering social aspects of the war and the war itself while maintaining a nearly unbiased approach. He doesn't glorify the winners and doesn't excoriate the losers. In war, everyone loses.… (more)

While not quite an "everything you know is wrong" sort of book Guardino does make a strong argument that the notion American victory in the war rested on superior national consciousness and patriotism has little basis in fact. Guardino clearly illustrates that there was a wide-spread national consciousness in Mexico, if also deep divides over what sort of country Mexico should be, while dryly noting that the late unpleasantness of the 1860s shows the shallowness of American national consciousness; people fight for many more reasons than some abstract sense of national unity. Frankly, the only real advantage United States had over Mexico was economic; but while that was more than enough to secure conventional victory it was not enough to facilitate a total annexation of the Mexican state. Unfortunately this is a lesson that American politicians continue to be unwilling to learn; Guardino being cheerfully willing to link unpleasant trends of the 19th century to those of the 21st century if they seem based on the same sort of bad attitudes and social dysfunction.… (more)