Dr. Tanalís Padilla

Biography

Tanalís Padilla is a historian focusing on political agrarian movements in modern Mexico. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, San Diego in 2001 and has published significant works including 'Rural Resistance: The Land of Zapata: The Jaramillista Movement and the Myth of the Pax Priísta, 1940-1962' (Duke University Press, 2008), which recounts the history of the agrarian movement that turned into armed struggle during a period considered stable in Mexican history. Padilla co-edited a special issue of the Journal Iberian Latin American Research in 2013, analyzing the implications of Mexico's declassified intelligence documents on post-revolutionary historiography. His latest book, 'Unintended Lessons of Revolution: Student Teachers and Political Radicalism in Twentieth-Century Mexico', traces the history of Mexico’s rural normales, or training schools for teachers. A frequent contributor to national newspaper La Jornada, he published an edited volume entitled 'El campesinado y su persistencia en la actualidad mexicana' in 2013, which is an interdisciplinary work focusing on the Mexican countryside and its recent past. His Spanish translation of a book on the Jaramillista movement was published by Akal in 2015. He has received fellowships from the Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Texas, Austin, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Ford Foundation. Prior to joining M.I.T. in 2015, he was a tenured professor of History at Dartmouth College, and he is currently working on a book about Cuba’s medical internationalism and its implications for Latin America.

Research Interests