Peter Guardino

Bernardo Mendel Chair in Latin American History and Provost Professor

Department of History

Campus
IU; IU Bloomington

Full Biography

My work focuses on Mexico’s impoverished majorities in the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century. In particular I am interested in social movements, state formation, nationalism and popular political culture in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Mexico. My first book, Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico’s National State: Guerrero, 1800-1857, (Stanford University Press, 1996) argues that Mexican peasants were well aware of the momentous political changes that came with independence and some groups participated actively in the movements and alliances through which Mexico’s national state was formed. My second book, “The Time of Liberty”: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750-1850 (Duke University Press, 2005) focuses on how popular political culture changed in both rural and urban areas under the impact of the Enlightenment, the Bourbon Reforms, independence, and liberal republicanism. My third book, The Dead March:  A History of the Mexican-American War, (Harvard University Press, 2017) is a social and cultural history of the 1846-48 war between Mexico and the United States. Focusing on gender, religion, and race, the project examines how soldiers and civilians in both countries understood and experienced the conflict. I am currently working on a book about how Mexican politics in the 1820s was shaped by the contradiction between the egalitarian ideals embraced by many mixed race Mexicans and the persistence of racial prejudice in Mexico's elite.  I teach graduate courses on colonial history, nationalism, and social movements as well as a variety of undergraduate courses on Mexico, modern and colonial Latin America, world history, and war.

Honors and Awards

  • Bolton-Cutter Award for the best journal article on any phase of the history of the Borderlands, from the Floridas to the Californias, from the sixteenth century to the present, including the northward movement of Spanish-speaking people into the United States, awarded by the Western History Association for “The Constant Recurrence of Such Atrocities:  Guerrilla Warfare and Counter-insurgency during the Mexican-American War.”
  • Distinguished Book Award for non-United States History, Society for Military History.  For The Dead March. (2019)
  • Bolton-Johnson Prize from the Conference on Latin American History for the best English-language book on any aspect of Latin American History.  For The Dead March. (2018)
  • Robert M. Utley Book Prize from the Western History Association for the best book published on the military history of the frontier and western North America from prehistory through the twentieth century. For The Dead March. (2018)
  • U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship (2008)
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers (1999)
  • Indiana University Teaching Excellence Recognition Award (1997)
  • Advanced Research Grant, Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies (1996)
  • Visiting Research Fellowship, Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego (1990-1991)
  • Social Sciences Research Council Fellowship (1988)
  • U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (1988)
  • International Institute of Education Fulbright Fellowship (1988)

Research Interests

  • Mexico
  • Latin America
  • political culture
  • war

Education

  • B.A. at University of Chicago, 1985
  • M.A. at University of Chicago, 1986
  • Ph.D. at University of Chicago, 1992

Courses Taught



  • The World in the Twentieth Century I
  • Colonial Latin American History
  • Modern Mexico
  • Nations and Nationalism
  • Social History of War
  • The Historical Profession

Publications

Books

  • The Dead March: A History of the Mexican-American War.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard University Press, 2017.
  • “The Time of Liberty”: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750-1850. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
  • Peasants, Politics and the Formation of Mexico’s National State: Guerrero, 1800-1857. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996.

Articles

  • “Jaime E. Rodríguez O. and Understanding the Independence Era.” Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos 39:3(Fall 2023)359-375.
  • “Sus familias sufren las consecuencias”.  Tensiones entre el compromiso con el hogar y el deber patriótico en las Guardias Nacionales mexicanas durante la invasión norteamericana,” pp. 17-31 in Milices et Gardes nationales latino-américaines dans une perspective atlantique (XIXème siècle).  Véronique Hébrard and Flávia Macias, Paris: Editions Les Perséides 2022.
  • "The Constant Recurrence of Such Atrocities:  Guerrilla Warfare and Counter-insurgency during the Mexican-American War.” The Journal of the Civil War Era 12:1(March 2022)3-27.
  • "Connected Communities: Villagers and Wider Social Systems in the Late Colonial and Early National Periods,” pp. 61-83 in Beyond Alterity:  Destabilizing the Indigenous Other in Mexico.  Paula López Caballero and Ariadna Acevedo Rodrigo, eds.  University of Arizona Press, 2018.
  • “Gender, Soldiering,and Citizenship in the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848,” American Historical Review 119:1 (February 2014) 23-46.
  • “Los campesinos mexicanos y la guerra de independencia: Un recorrido.” Tzintzun 51(enero-junio 2010) 13-36.