Includes bibliographical references and index.

List of Illustrations and Tables -- Translator’s Preface -- Chronology -- Principal Organizations by Acronym -- Introduction -- 1 Anticlerical Radicalism -- 1 Jacobinism and Bolshevism -- 2 Influence -- 3 The ICAM in Tabasco -- 4 The Tip of the Spear -- 5 The Fiercest Enemy -- 6 The Land without God -- 7 Variations on the Same Theme -- 8 Combating Fanaticism -- 9 Anecdotes -- 10 Repercussions -- 11 Garrido’s Path -- 2 Education without Dogma -- 1 The Modern School in Tabasco -- 2 Objectives of the New Education -- 3 The Rationalist School in Operation -- 4 Against Centralized Education -- 5 In the Time of Revolutionary Psychology -- 6 The Students Take Sides -- 3 The Enclave Economy -- 1 Green Gold -- 2 A Unique Sort of Agrarian Reform -- 4 The Puritan Modernizer -- 1 The Cooperative Republic -- 2 The Anti-vice Campaign -- 3 Socialism without Marx -- 5 Politics, Tabasco-Style -- 1 Garrido’s Power -- 2 An Impregnable Bastion -- 3 The Ligas de Resistencia -- 4 The Emissary of Revolutionary Thought -- 5 Regional versus Central Government -- 6 Anatomy of the Camisas Rojas -- 7 Women as the Foundation of Garridista Society -- 6 In the Eyes of His Enemies -- 1 Protect Our Traditions! -- 2 Dimas, the Good Thief -- 3 Anticlericalism -- 4 Rationalist Teaching -- 5 Ligas de Resistencia -- 6 The Camisas Rosas -- 7 The Black Legend -- 8 And Even the Victor Is More Honored -- 9 An Eye for an Eye -- 10 The Crusades -- 7 The Confrontation -- 1 Bloody Sunday in Coyoacán -- 2 The Field of Battle Is Chosen -- 3 The Leader’s Fall -- 8 Tabasco Must Be Mexicanized -- 1 In the Shadow of Don Tomás -- 2 “And the Gates of Hell Will Not Prevail …” -- 3 National Integration -- 9 The Voluntary Exile of Garrido Canabal -- 1 The Leader of the Southeast -- 2 Another Life -- 3 In Garrido’s Absence -- 4 Before and After -- 5 The New World -- 6 Internal Politics -- 7 National Politics: Petroleum -- 8 The Rebellion of Saturnino Cedillo -- 9 Quarrel with the Catholic Church -- 10 The Presidential Succession of 1940 -- 11 Economy and Agrarian Reform -- 12 The Return -- 13 Death Comes for the Man of Action -- 14 El Vencedor -- Glossary of Spanish Terms -- Bibliography -- Index.

Laboratory of the Revolution is the first-ever professional study of Tomás Garrido Canabal, revolutionary strongman of Tabasco state between 1922 and 1935. He dreamed of turning Tabasco—an isolated backwater and the quintessential “banana republic”—into a beacon of progress. Garrido’s recipe for that progress consisted of ridding the state of religion, prohibiting alcohol and other vices, championing science, and boosting agriculture and ranching. He only fell from power when a shoot-out in Tabasco furnished the pretext for subordinating the state to President Lázaro Cárdenas’s centrally governed political machine, the forerunner of Mexico’s long-lived one-party system.

English

Description based on print version record.