090505-FN5/SourceOfTelenovelas

This thumb-nail summary cannot do justice to the convoluted intrigues of the period, which make one think that Mexican telenovelas have their roots in history. But neither can this summary do justice to the men themselves. All parties have their simpletons and scoundrels, but the distressing fact is that the ranks of conservatives and liberals alike contained erudite and intelligent scientists, scholars, poets, jurists. Both the conservative Almazán and the liberal Bustamante (later president) wrote definitive histories of Mexico, albeit from their differning perspectives. Perhaps history has it's roots in novelas -- after all Quixote's sallied forth, we are told, from too much reading.
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