Nation guard units, the defenders of local rights, were demobilized, costing the people of the sierra their military arm. According to Thompson, by the 1890s, inter and intra village conflicts, often based on class and racial differences, diminished to their profit. Even while pragmatically shifting from one revolutionary leader to the next, Lucas continued to strive for regional autonomy in the sierra, equality of citizenship, and other guarantees embedded in the constitution. For his lifelong endeavors, today he stands enshrined in serrano lore. This fine book follows the important and needed trend toward regional studies that now marks so much Mexican historiography.
Few works do it, however, in such admirable detail.
However, one can only admire the author's scrupulous attention to local resources, which leave no doubt as to where the history of the sierra was being made and can be investigated. The book is a solid building block towards our understanding of this tempestuous period in Mexican history.