Daniela Spenser

In a rigorously researched biography and through graceful prose, Daniela Spenser narrates the life of Vicente Lombardo Toledano, a man who reflects the complexity of post-revolutionary Mexico, the hopes it awoke as much as the failed projects it left behind.

In Combat: The Life of Lombardo Toledano

México, América Central y el Caribe

Espejos de la guerra fría

Para sus seguidores y el sistema político, Vicente Lombardo Toledano es un héroe... Pero la realidad es más compleja. Fundador de numerosos sindicatos en México y en América Latina, Lombardo Toledano no sólo fue un organizador sino un negociador que destrababa conflictos imposibles. Fue un creyente en el orden, decidido a mantener la estabilidad del país y de la región a toda costa. Un operador del gobierno mexicano y, cuando lo creía oportuno, de las naciones vecinas y de la Unión Soviética. Un hombre identificado como comunista que, sin embargo, jamás perteneció a ese partido, y que fue vinculado con el PRI, del que no era miembro sino comparsa. Con una vida apasionante, fundó trascendentales instituciones como la CTM y la Confederación de Trabajadores de América Latina, que construyó como organizaciones sindicales así como mecanismos de negociación, cuando sus normas le estorbaban. En una biografía rigurosa y fluida, Daniela Spenser relata la vida de Lombardo Toledano, un hombre que refleja la complejidad del México posrevolucionario, tanto la esperanza que despertó como los proyectos fallidos que dejó.

En combate: La vida de Lombardo Toledano

Gilbert M. Joseph

Over the last decade, studies of the Cold War have mushroomed globally. Unfortunately, work on Latin America has not been well represented in either theoretical or empirical discussions of the broader conflict. With some notable exceptions, studies have proceeded in rather conventional channels, focusing on U.S. policy objectives and high-profile leaders (Fidel Castro) and events (the Cuban Missile Crisis) and drawing largely on U.S. government sources. Moreover, only rarely have U.S. foreign relations scholars engaged productively with Latin American historians who analyze how the international conflict transformed the region’s political, social, and cultural life. Representing a collaboration among eleven North American, Latin American, and European historians, anthropologists, and political scientists, this volume attempts to facilitate such a cross-fertilization. In the process, In From the Cold shifts the focus of attention away from the bipolar conflict, the preoccupation of much of the so-called new Cold War history, in order to showcase research, discussion, and an array of new archival and oral sources centering on the grassroots, where conflicts actually brewed. The collection’s contributors examine international and everyday contests over political power and cultural representation, focusing on communities and groups above and underground , on state houses and diplomatic board rooms manned by Latin American and international governing elites, on the relations among states regionally, and, less frequently, on the dynamics between the two great superpowers themselves. In addition to charting new directions for research on the Latin American Cold War, In From the Cold seeks to contribute more generally to an understanding of the conflict in the global south. Contributors. Ariel C. Armony, Steven J. Bachelor, Thomas S. Blanton, Seth Fein, Piero Gleijeses, Gilbert M. Joseph, Victoria Langland, Carlota McAllister, Stephen Pitti, Daniela Spenser, Eric Zolov

Daniela Spenser

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