Photographs probably expanded more horizons and redefined more ways of knowing the world than any other product of nineteenth-century technology. The first daguerreotypes appeared in the Western Hemisphere merely months after the triumphal announcement of Daguerre's process by the French Academy in 1839. In the next three decades, millions of photographic images were produced. Three distinct categories predominated: studio portraits, scenic views for collectors and, after the early 1850s, photographic images transferred to woodcuts and, later, lithographs for publication as line sketches in illustrated newspapers and magazines. Photographic “science” complemented neatly the elite's striving for ways to affirm the region's material progress. Photographers played a vital role in presenting to the world a vision rooted in the aspirations of the dominant members of society.

It is sometimes alleged that “history is written by the victors.” Perhaps, it is more accurate to say that “history is written by the rich.” The wealthy nations of the North Atlantic world, which have tended to dominate scholarship in modern times, have molded events in their own image. Thus, when considering the eighteenth century transformations, scholars with “global” vision such as Peter Gay, Jacques Godechot, and R.R. Palmer have interpreted the “Enlightenment” and the “Age of Democratic Revolutions” broadly, including both the experience of the United States and of select Western European nations. Yet these cosmopolitan scholars find no place for Spain or Latin America in their works. Gay describes Spain as the “other side of the eighteenth century,” while both Godechot and Palmer end the age of revolutions in 1799, thus excluding the Spanish and the Spanish American revolutions which occurred in the early nineteenth century.

The Relación De Las Ceremonías Y Ritos Y Población Y Gobernación De Los Indios De La Provincia De Michoacán is a complex, and beautiful, colonial text. We know that it was compiled by a Franciscan missionary, most probably Fray Jerónimo de Alcalá, although we cannot state his identity with complete certainty. We also know that it was based on the testimony of Michoacán's indigenous elite. Beyond that, however, it is not possible to obtain specific information about the text. For example, we do not know how or when the indigenous testimonies were collected, except that it was during the first twenty years after the Conquest (1519). The indigenous elite informants, with one exception, are also unknown.

Support by a segment of industrialists for Juan Perón has been a crucial feature of much writing about Peronism. This has been sustained by such diverse authors as Torcuato Di Tella, Miguel Murmis and Juan Carlos Portantiero, and Guillermo O'Donnell. Moreover, in many discussions of the nature of populism—in which Peronism is considered an epitome of the phenomenon—a critical role is played by a multiclass alliance which included both workers and industrialists. Yet in 1945 industrialists as a group did not support Perón. The year 1945 is critical to any discussion of the nature of Peronism because it was then that Perón built his core constituency. In addition, there occurred what can only be considered the founding myth of Peronism—the massive workers' demonstration of October 17. Later Perón was able to expand his support, but his base was created in 1945. In order to better understand both the development of Perón's support and then to reflect on what this tells us about the nature of populism, the relationship between Perón and industrialists will be explored from the military's seizure of power in June 1943 to the presidential elections in February 1946. During this period—although Perón was rapidly gathering power—he was not formally head of the government.