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Remembering the Forgotten War
The Enduring Legacies of the U.S.-Mexican War
Published by: University of Massachusetts Press
Series: Public History in Historical Perspective
368 Pages, 6.12 x 9.25 x 1.50 in, 30 b&w illus.
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On February 2, 1848, representatives of the United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ending hostilities between the two countries and ceding over one-half million square miles of land to the northern victors. In Mexico, this defeat has gradually moved from the periphery of dishonor to the forefront of national consciousness. In the United States, the war has taken an opposite trajectory, falling from its once-celebrated prominence into the shadowy margins of forgetfulness and denial.
Why is the U.S.–Mexican War so clearly etched in the minds of Mexicans and so easily overlooked by Americans? This book investigates that issue through a transnational, comparative analysis of how the tools of collective memory—books, popular culture, historic sites, heritage groups, commemorations, and museums—have shaped the war's multifaceted meaning in the 160 years since it ended. Michael Van Wagenen explores how regional, ethnic, and religious differences influence Americans and Mexicans in their choices of what to remember and what to forget. He further documents what happens when competing memories clash in a quest for dominance and control.
In the end, Remembering the Forgotten War addresses the deeper question of how remembrance of the U.S.–Mexican War has influenced the complex relationship between these former enemies now turned friends. It thus provides a new lens through which to view today's cross-border rivalries, resentments, and diplomatic pitfalls.
Why is the U.S.–Mexican War so clearly etched in the minds of Mexicans and so easily overlooked by Americans? This book investigates that issue through a transnational, comparative analysis of how the tools of collective memory—books, popular culture, historic sites, heritage groups, commemorations, and museums—have shaped the war's multifaceted meaning in the 160 years since it ended. Michael Van Wagenen explores how regional, ethnic, and religious differences influence Americans and Mexicans in their choices of what to remember and what to forget. He further documents what happens when competing memories clash in a quest for dominance and control.
In the end, Remembering the Forgotten War addresses the deeper question of how remembrance of the U.S.–Mexican War has influenced the complex relationship between these former enemies now turned friends. It thus provides a new lens through which to view today's cross-border rivalries, resentments, and diplomatic pitfalls.
Michael Scott Van Wagenen is an assistant professor at Georgia Southern University, where he teaches courses in public history. He is the author of The Texas Republic and the Mormon Kingdom of God and co-editor of Between Pulpit and Pew: The Supernatural World in Mormon History and Folklore. He previously taught U.S.–Mexico borderlands history at the University of Texas at Brownsville. In addition to his scholarly research and writing, he is a national award–winning documentary filmmaker. His work has been screened at numerous film festivals and broadcast internationally on public and cable television.
"An important book with implications for both American foreign policy and U.S.–Latin America relations today. The long time frame of the project, the author's mastery of Mexican sources, the images, and above all else, the author's transnational focus, are all highly impressive."—Amy S. Greenberg, author of Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire
"A handful of black-and-white photographs illustrate this excellent study and analysis, highly recommended especially for public and college library world history collections."—The Midwest Book Review
"The well-researched work is intended for those interested in public history and the use and manipulation of historical events. Recommended."—Choice
"Remembering the Forgotten War makes a valuable contribution to the growing library of scholarly works on war's role in national memory, and its useful reminder of the importance of memories of this particular conflict in U.S.-Mexican relations."—American Historical Review
"Impressively eclectic. . . . Van Wagenen's book is a thoroughly researched and insightful contribution to the literature on a war which, if not exactly 'forgotten,' is scandalously underappreciated."—Register of the Kentucky Historical Society
"This book . . . provides an important explanation of how two societies developed very different memories of a shared conflict."—H-Diplo
"Mexico's modern secular state, [Van Wagenen] argues, seized control of the nation's memory by elevating ninos heroes, the boy cadets who lost their lives in the 1847 Battle of Chapultepec, as the ruling symbol of Mexican patriotism. As 'non ideological victims' of the wary, the boy heroes of Chapultepec also supplied Mexico's leaders with a way to celebrate their resistance 'without offending the United States.'"—Journal of American History
"In this meticulous study about the legacies of the U.S.-Mexican War (1846-48), Michael Van Wagenen reminds readers that the history of remembering is also the history of forgetting. . . . The true value of Van Wagenen's work is the long view that he takes, deftly showing how political and cultural leaders of two nations shaped memory and forgetting to fit shifting agendas over the period of mare than a 150 years."—H-Net
"This book helps us understand the complex relationship between Mexico and the United States. . . . [It] is a fine analysis of how and why historical memory can and does change over time."—Georgia Historical Quarterly
"Although others have explored the formation of the collective memory of the conflict in the past, Remembering the Forgotten War remains the only scholarly work on the subject that evaluates the entire period of time that has elapsed since the war's end."—Madison Historical Review
"Useful for public, period, and diplomatic historians, Van Wagenen's book would be a welcome addition to any graduate class that examines the construction of public memory. . . . If a nation consciously neglects to teach events in depth, then the paper-thin exculpations for American involvement cannot be critically examined and the myth is safe for another generation. Thus Van Wagenen suggests that myths can be constructed both through omission as well as distortion."—Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"Remembering the Forgotten War makes fascinating reading; students and scholars of public memory, as well as of the Southwestern U.S and U.S.-Mexican relations, will find much of this book thought-provoking and useful."—American Studies
"With approachable language and discrete chapters, Remembering the Forgotten War lends itself to use in the undergraduate and/or graduate classroom. Van Wagenen is very successful in examining the way in which this war was shaped and reshaped in the memories of people on both sides of the Rio Bravo."—Historical Journal of Massachusetts
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