Arise!: Global Radicalism in the Era of the Mexican Revolution

by Christina Heatherton

An international history of radical movements and their convergences during the Mexican Revolution   The Mexican Revolution was a global event that catalyzed international radicals in unexpected sites and struggles. Tracing the paths of figures like Black American artist Elizabeth Catlett, Indian anti-colonial activist M.N. Roy, Mexican revolutionary leader Ricardo Flores Magón, Okinawan migrant organizer Paul Shinsei Kōchi, and Soviet feminist Alexandra Kollontai, Arise! reveals how activists around the world found inspiration and solidarity in revolutionary Mexico.    From art collectives and farm worker strikes to prison "universities," Arise! reconstructs how this era's radical organizers found new ways to fight global capitalism. Drawing on prison records, surveillance data, memoirs, oral histories, visual art, and a rich trove of untapped sources, Christina Heatherton considers how disparate revolutionary traditions merged in unanticipated alliances. From her unique vantage point, she charts the remarkable impact of the Mexican Revolution as radicals in this critical era forged an anti-racist internationalism from below.  

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

587 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 4, 2022

Reviews

[Anneke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tight and powerful exploration of global radicalism in the first half of the 20th century as related to the Mexican Revolution. At times I felt that the book became too narrowly focused in on specific individuals rather than the movements themselves, often spending less time on how the individuals were representative of larger causes. I’m not sure I would call this short-sighted or lacking, necessarily, but perhaps it’s just not my specific taste in writing as much. That kind of balancing act is difficult in historiography though and on the whole I feel that Arise! was an effective study of various aspects of revolutionary organizing and internationalism. I think Christina Heatherton’s methodological approach is very strong and it resonated with how I’ve come to think about history as of late. I appreciate Heatherton’s emphasis on the constant making and unmaking of our perceptions of history, the messiness of this process and our entanglement in it. I also think that the emphasis on economic subjugation through capitalism, at root of colonialism, was very well-defined.

Thank you Nacie for introducing me to this book! Will hopefully be incorporating some of this into my thesis and art practice 🤞 The chapter on Elizabeth Catlett was especially inspiring to me and I feel very motivated to reconsider art’s pedagogical potential as I move forward w various creative projects.

[Luise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Christina's writing is effortlessly brilliant. Arise! illustrates the importance of international solidarity and the plurality of the convergence spaces where it is forged. Her take on how we make sense of history and how the narratives we choose to reproduce creates spaces in which we can see our histories, their contradictions and legacies more clearly - at a time where a feeling of disconnectedness and political powerlessness seems epidemic. She recovers the traditions of key thinkers and organizers, not as larger-than-life heroes but drawing our attention to the conditions against which they arose and the ways in which they never ceased to collectively make sense of the world. Arise! invites us to do the same.

[Joe Kusters]

Picked this up expecting more focus and background on the Mexican Revolution, but it just cursorily refers to it at various points, and is more about picking a couple radicals and telling a loose overview of their life and highlighting what they were doing around the years 1910-1921. Think it's meant to be more of a supplement to an actual history of the Mexican Revolution and expects you to already know that history in detail, and is also much shorter than I was expecting, so just wasn't what I was looking for with this.

[Jared Cooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and beautifully written. Delicate balance between breadth and depth where narrow focus on individuals was used to illuminate broad movements and interaction of ideologies.

[Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

good but strays away a lot from the mexican revolution and even mexico towards the end, overly academic in parts

[Alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This rocked. Inspiring methodology, clarity, and heart.