The Mexican Revolution, which brought an end to the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, entailed a radical reorganization of the government, a new constitution, and a new way of writing history. The Revolution remains a landmark in Mexico’s official history; the current president, for instance, positions his administration as a “Fourth Transformation”—after the Revolution, Reform, and Independence. As such, it provides a useful point of comparison with previous understandings of the past.
Task: Quoting Yael Zerubavel, Thomas Benjamin notes that “a basic ‘story line,’ the master narrative, ‘is culturally constructed and provides the group members with a general notion of their shared past'” is key to the construction of the nation. Can this concept help us understand previous depictions of national history? How did ideas of the past change over time?
