Torn Asunder: Republican Crises and Civil Wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867

by Erika Pani

Overview

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War and dramatically reshaped North American geopolitics by ceding half of Mexico’s territory to the United States. In the following decades, as conflicts over slavery in the United States and over the nature of nation, state, and religion in Mexico overwhelmed politics, both republics collapsed into civil war. In Mexico, internal conflict sparked foreign intervention and the establishment of monarchical rule under an Austrian prince, while across the border, eleven Southern states seceded from the union to establish a republic founded on slavery and white supremacy.

Erika Pani’s Torn Asunder weaves these two tales of crisis, war, and political experimentation into a single story. Pani argues that by consecrating these episodes as epic and exceptionalist chapters in both nations' histories, scholars have overlooked the coincidences and connections between the United States and Mexico. She chronicles the ways in which, between 1848 and 1867, politicians from the two nations tested different formulas, reacted to virulent opposition, sedition, and war, and ultimately attempted to unite deeply divided countries. Torn Asunder highlights the fragile, contentious, and unpredictable nature of politics in the Americas, rooted in the inherent instability of popular sovereignty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469689081
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	09/23/2025
Series:	The David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands History
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Erika Pani is research professor at Centro de Estudios Históricos, El Colegio de México.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“With extraordinary insight, Erika Pani has written a bold, exciting interpretation of the entangled history of the American hemisphere’s foremost republics as each struggled to defend its embattled nation.” –Don H. Doyle, author of The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War

“Torn Asunder is the most compelling, subtle, and convincing history of the two nineteenth-century North American republics ever written in English.”—Gregory Downs, University of California, Davis

“Brilliant, engaging. . . . A fresh and revealing look at the conflicts, parallel trajectories, intertwined developments, and intricate relations that spurred two decades of momentous change in the United States and Mexico.”—Paolo Riguzzi, research professor, Center for Historical Studies, El Colegio de México

“Groundbreaking. . . . Torn Asunder challenges scholars to ponder the deeply entangled histories of the United States and Mexico during the stunningly violent process that resulted in both evolving politically into modern nation-states.”—Patrick J. Kelly, associate professor of history, emeritus, University of Texas at San Antonio

“Erika Pani’s brilliant, entangled history of Mexico and the United States upends conventional wisdom about the turbulent 1800s and raises new questions about the fragility of North America’s republican experiment.”—Frank Towers, coeditor of Remaking North American Sovereignty: State Transformation in the 1860s

“Not only the best attempt at writing a comparative history of the mid-nineteenth-century North American civil wars but also the only one that really knows Mexico and takes it seriously.”—Pablo Mijangos y González, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Chair in History, Southern Methodist University

“A paradigm-shifting interpretation of how crisis tore apart Mexico and the United States at the same time, Torn Asunder is a truly significant contribution to the field.”—Will Fowler, University of St. Andrews

Editorial Reviews

“With extraordinary insight, Erika Pani has written a bold, exciting interpretation of the entangled history of the American hemisphere’s foremost republics as each struggled to defend its embattled nation.” –Don H. Doyle, author of The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War

“Torn Asunder is the most compelling, subtle, and convincing history of the two nineteenth-century North American republics ever written in English.”—Gregory Downs, University of California, Davis

“Brilliant, engaging. . . . A fresh and revealing look at the conflicts, parallel trajectories, intertwined developments, and intricate relations that spurred two decades of momentous change in the United States and Mexico.”—Paolo Riguzzi, research professor, Center for Historical Studies, El Colegio de México

“Groundbreaking. . . . Torn Asunder challenges scholars to ponder the deeply entangled histories of the United States and Mexico during the stunningly violent process that resulted in both evolving politically into modern nation-states.”—Patrick J. Kelly, associate professor of history, emeritus, University of Texas at San Antonio

“Erika Pani’s brilliant, entangled history of Mexico and the United States upends conventional wisdom about the turbulent 1800s and raises new questions about the fragility of North America’s republican experiment.”—Frank Towers, coeditor of Remaking North American Sovereignty: State Transformation in the 1860s

“Not only the best attempt at writing a comparative history of the mid-nineteenth-century North American civil wars but also the only one that really knows Mexico and takes it seriously.”—Pablo Mijangos y González, Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Chair in History, Southern Methodist University

“A paradigm-shifting interpretation of how crisis tore apart Mexico and the United States at the same time, Torn Asunder is a truly significant contribution to the field.”—Will Fowler, University of St. Andrews

From the Publisher