Preface: Debating history to face the present and imagine the future / John Tutino -- Introduction: Crises, reforms, and revolutions in Mexico, past and present / Leticia Reina, Elisa Servín, and John Tutino -- Communities. Of tempests and teapots : imperial crisis and local conflict in Mexico at the beginning of the nineteenth century / Eric Van Young ; The two-faced Janus : the pueblos and the origins of Mexican liberalism / Antonio Annino ; Local elections and regime crises : the political culture of indigenous peoples / Leticia Reina -- Revolutions. Mexico from independence to revolution : the mutations of liberalism / François-Xavier Guerra ; Mexico's three Fin de Siècle crises / Alan Knight ; International wars, Mexico, and U.S. hegemony / Friedrich Katz ; The revolutionary capacity of rural communities : ecological autonomy and its demise / John Tutino -- Contemporary crisis. The second coming of Mexican liberalism : a comparative perspective / Lorenzo Meyer ; Civil society and popular resistance : Mexico at the end of the twentieth century / Guillermo de la Peña ; The left in the neoliberal era / Enrique Semo ; Another turn of the screw : toward a new political order / Elisa Servín.