Another interesting period would be Cortés et al, and on that there is a great book by a new englander, William Prescott, title The History of the Conquest of México ... excellent read for a book written in the 1830s or so, only a few niggling inaccuracies and most of those have come to light through new data of some sort [i forget the detail but they are small things anyway] ... Prescott with this book and one on Ferdinand and Isabella pretty much started up a formal history of the Americas, he got a lot of respect, and quite rightly, put out years of effort, went to Spain to research archives, brought out things no one had known ... it's all over México in spanish, and i've used the english beside it to help kids with this language, works great ... most do get bored fast with history, just like a few interesting bits, then they want to make a few pesos and have a torta, get laid and have a beer, not necessarily in that order ... probably not that much different anywhere
Don't miss the independencia period, 16 Sept 1810 to 1823 or so ... Iturbide is a hoot, decided to have an empire, but there are more important figures, like Morelos, Hidalgo, Guerrero, López de Santa Anna ... the latter is a long sad story, started out pretending to be classic liberal and went through various other poses, ended up a whimpering coward signing a paper the slavers put in front of him in the course of their thievery of Tejas ... Juárez was a better man, friend and ally of Lincoln, they did what they could to help each other but were both busy at the time, one with the french and the other with the slaver states ... in the period of Robolución starting 1910 centre the study on Zapata, he was the only true revolutionary, the others were mere rebels ... although, maybe they just shot him before he had a chance to corrupt himself, who knows
Carabella motocicletas, yes there are lots around, a few in our village even, there is no pavement so it's not motorcycle friendly, we have more the scooters and there are few of those ... there is one guy with a tricycle made from a 250cc model, the cargo deck is in front, he used to go all over, problem with it is he can't pile very high, or he can't see over ... his father has horses, and that is the way to go for practical use, unless you're going to town and then you take the colectivo, let somebody else worry about maintenance ... all my own motorcycle experience was with english machines, Norton, JAP, BSA, put many thousands of miles on a 1965 twin carb BSA Lightning, Canada and US only [paved highways in México often don't have the shoulders we have here, no point in being brave] ... had a Triumph for a while, little Honda 90 when i was a kid, half a Harley briefly but drove it maybe twice [never buy a bike with a partner] ... pickup trucks since, and one old diesel krautmobile, that's all ... i got to wonder if all this might be boring the folks here, it used to be something of a financial board ... used to be called the collapse thread, you know, The Coming Financial Collapse of 2001 ... unfortunately termed maybe, a few days after those towers fell that september, the name was changed
Through Mérida is the way to Belice ... one time i was staying near that highway several hours to the west, in a little town where beliceño car thieves hung out, to rest on the way no doubt, they had a great business going, steal a car in LA or wherever and drive it home, sell it for amazing amounts of money ... it was a big business for a while, don't know if it still is, at that time you could get a permit to drive through the country quite easily as long as they were sure you would exit, might be tightened up since ... they were some of the ugliest types, violence and drugs, had guns, threatened the brother of my landlady ... anyway these guys had a couple of Harleys, i swear one was a police model fresh from under the cop's bum
Your theory about the world being better had the nazis prevailed, that is interesting ... it means no russian empire, maybe quite a few less russians period, remember how they had signs in the Ruhr, Slaven sind Sklaven, 'slavs are slaves' ... actually the word slav comes from a roman belief that they made good slaves .... so no russian problem, no cold war, does that really mean less tinpot dictatorships set up to 'fight commies'? ... i really wonder about that, more likely it would have been imperial business as usual, just with a more german flavour ... chances of the nazis relaxing the police state were pretty slim, imho, these were not laissez-faire freedom of speech liberals ... chances of them leaving the brits in peace following some phoney peace treaty were pretty slim too ... no, it had to be fought, they were bad news ... it's all off in the infinity of What-If anyway, but interesting that you would touch such a sacred cow .... cheers.
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