The Princes of Naranja

<p>In this groundbreaking study Paul Friedrich looks closely at the strong men of the Tarascan Indian village of Naranja: their leadership friendship kinship and violent local politics (over a time depth of one generation) and ways to understand such phenomena. What emerges is an acutely observed portrait of the men who form the very basis of the grass-roots power structure in Mexico today.</p> <p>Of interest to historians sociologists and political scientists as well as Latin Americanists and anthropologists <i>The Princes of Naranja</i> is a sequel to Friedrich's now classic <i>Agrarian Revolt in a Mexican Village</i>. It begins with biographical character studies of seven leaders-peasant gunmen judges <i>politicos</i>; here the book will grip the reader and provoke strong emotional response from laughter to horror. A middle section places these princes in relation to each other and to the contexts of village society and the larger entities of which it forms a part. Friedrich's synthesis of anthropology local (mainly oral) history macrohistory microsociology psychology and literature gives new insight into the structure of Mexican politics from the local level up and provides a model for other scholars doing analogous work in other parts of the world especially in the developing world. The concluding section raises vital questions about the dynamic relations between the fieldworker fieldwork field notes the villagers the writing of a fieldwork-based book and implicitly the audience for such books.</p>