Rod’s Reviews > A Glorious Defeat: Mexico and Its War with the United States > Status Update

The Mexicans had not invaded American territory. The Americans, rather, had provoked an attack in territory they claimed on dubious grounds.

Timely exhibitions of reckless courage were capable of distracting the Mexican people from a host of domestic woes.

How could Mexico possibly keep Texas, if Mexicans could not agree among themselves? (General Manuel de Mier y Terán, 1832)

Like all enlightened republicans, he professed to believe that nations should possess the right to determine their own course; yet at the same time he derided any system that did not closely resemble that of the United States

Mexico's weakness with respect to the United States, which lay at the root of the conflict, was no one's fault but was rather the result of a long and complex history.