In this new and masterful synthesis, Wasserman shows the link between ordinary men and women preoccupied with the demands of feeding, clothing, and providing shelter and the elites desire for a stable political order and an expanding economy. The emphasis in this book is on the struggle of the common people to retain control over their everyday lives. Concerns central to village life were the appointment of police officials, imposition of taxes on Indians, the trustworthiness of local priests, and changes in land ownership. Communities often followed their leaders into one political camp or another and even into war out of loyalty. During wartime, women acted as the supply, transportation, and medical corps of the Mexican armies. Moreover, with greater frequency than has been known, women fought as soldiers in the nineteenth century.
