As If Jesus Walked on Earth

Conservatives branded him a communist traitor, a dangerous radical importing exotic ideologies that ultimately would destroy the concepts of private property, the family and religion. However, to the Indians, working class and poor, Lazaro Cardenas, former President of Mexico, was a virtual deity and the embodiment of the people. During his term (1934-1940), Cardenas fought to correct the deeply rooted popular grievances that eventually sparked the Mexican Revolution. Through his efforts, landless peasants were granted land, the country witnessed an increase in wages and working conditions improved. Cardenas created Mexico's unique, remarkably stable, corporatist political system by founding the official Partido de la Revolucion Mexicana (PRM). Yet many Latin Americanists believe that the popularity of this controversial figure has clouded the understanding of Mexico's history. This detailed study debunks many of the established interpretations of Cardenismo and illuminates the historical process which created Mexico's post-revolutionary political culture.
"As If Jesus Walked on Earth" analyzes what Cardenismo actually meant for ordinary Mexicans - culturally, politically and economically - as they struggled through those difficult years of radical reform. By specifically focusing on Cardenas's impact in the northern border states of Sonora, Professor Adrian Bantjes explores the multivocality of Cardenismo in an effort to understand both the utopianism and the praxis of post-revolutionary Mexican society. In this study of a key phase in the process of centralization by an increasingly powerful Mexican State, readers should gain an enhanced understanding of Lazaro Cardenas and the wider debate on the nature of the Mexican Revolution.