Journey To The United States of North America / Viaje a los Estados Unidos del Norte de America
Book (italiano):
First published in Paris in 1834, this is a travel narrative that maps Lorenzo de Zavala's journey through the United States during his exile from Mexico in 1830. Embracing U.S., Texas, and Mexican history; early ethnography; geography; and political philosophy, de Zavala outlines the cultural and political institutions of Jacksonian America and post-independence Mexico. His commentary rivals Alex de Tocqueville's classic travel narrative, Democracy in America, which was published in Paris one year after de Zavala's.<BR>This is the first account of U.S. political culture from a Mexican point of view and constructs the first comparative political and historical framework for the relationship between Mexico and the United States.<BR>In passionate prose, de Zavala argues for the incorporation of the true democratic ideals of the enlightenment in the fledgling Republic of Texas. He hoped Texas would meld the best of both Mexican and American cultures. De Zavala believed that Texans could understood the complexities of democracy and the ideals embodied in a liberal, federal government, and that these ideals could lead them to extend equal rights to all: American Indians, Mexicans, Euro-Texans, and freed men. De Zavala saw the continuation of slavery as a serious setback to democracy in the United States, and was leery of setting up any new republic that preserved that heinous institution.<BR>The original text is accompanied by John-Michael Rivera's critical introduction and an English translation based upon Wallace Woolsey's deft translation, expanded and revised for the purposes of this volume.
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