Includes bibliographical references and index.

Waves and ripples : studies of the Mexican hacienda since 1980 -- Rural Latin America : the colonial period and nineteenth century -- Two decades of Anglophone writing on colonial Mexico : continuity and change since 1980 -- No human power to impede the impenetrable order of providence : the historiography of Mexican independence -- Doing regional history : a theoretical discussion and some Mexican cases -- The Cuautla Lazarus : reading texts on popular collective action -- The new cultural history comes to old Mexico.