History IA Topic on Mexican Revolution

[Alix]

Hey everyone,

My history teacher would like us to start narrowing down our IA topic and start researching. I've decided to do my IA on the Mexican Revolution as we haven't done much work on it in class so I feel like I should know it better. However, because we haven't done much of it in class, I haven't really thought of how to narrow it down but was thinking about "What was the role of nationalism in causing the Mexican Revolution?" and I was wondering if this is a viable topic, if it is narrow enough or if it sounds like a really easy IA and that it isn't challenging enough. Any advice is appreciated.

Thanks!

[sweetnsimple786]

I think you can and should narrow down a bit. The Mexican Revolution is vague to me. You have cycles that are marked by overthrowings of the different leaders. You could stick to one leader. Diaz, maybe. Talk about his motives, which were fine, and the consequences--good for foreigners, terrible for the majority of Mexicans. You could analyze if his actions were justified, but that's leading to a different road, if you want to go there.

Or you could look at maybe 2 of the leaders. Diaz, Madero, Villa or Carranza. But if you're going to do this, you'll need to be very specific. To what extent did nationalism unite ____ and ______ during the Mexican Revolution from Year __ to Year __?

Something like that.

[Heygreen4]

Your history topic sounds good, the mexican revolution is an interesting topic.

My IB class read two sources that may help you finish or answer your Internal Assessment to a greater extent:

A source that explains the processes of revolutions and has a section on nationalism being a contributing for the birth of a revolution:

"The comparitive and Historical Study of Revolutions" by Jack A. Goldstone (Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 8, pp. 187-207

Another source that will set out the background and processes of the Mexican Revolution:

A Shorty History of Latin America by Benjamin Keen pg. 338-353 354-462 and 363-375

I noticed recurring and common themes in the reading:

-- The facade of modernity in Latin America, and the economic dependency of Latin American countries on foreign investors

--the consolidation of power (social, economic, and political) in the hands of the few (creoles, peninsulars, elite) while the majority of the population had literally nothing (mestizoes and indigenous)

-- Mexicans wanted social revolution

-- Also, in Mexico about 84 percent of the population were farmers yet over 97% of them didn't own land (land considated to hacendados and church)

Hope this helps

[Alix]

Thanks a lot, I feel more confident about my IA, it's coming along well, and thank you for the sources, I will definitely check those out!