To Lead by Obeying

Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas is a full-time researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. He specializes in the theory of history in the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries and in the new antisystemic movements in Latin America. He is the author of The Combatant: A Che Guevara Enigma, 2023.

Preface to the English Edition – By Way of Introduction: When the Imagination Takes Power – Leading by Obeying: Popular Self- Government, Political Autonomy, and Integral Global Autonomy –The Death of the Human Activity of Politics: The Other Politics and the Other Democracy – Mexican Neo- Zapatismo, Heir to the World Cultural Revolution of 1968 – The Mexican Neo- Zapatista Movement and the Transition from a Modernity of Resistance to an Alternative Modernity – A Conclusion That Questions Instead of Concluding – Appendix 1 Building Counter- Power from Below and to the Left (or, How to Change the World by Revolutionizing Power from Below Power) – Appendix 2 The Zapatista Gaze: Looking (to and from) Below and to the Left – Appendix 3 The New Stage of Mexican Neo- Zapatismo – Appendix 4 The Little Zapatista School: Living the Struggle for Autonomy from Within – Appendix 5 The (Symbolic) Death of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos and the Collective Neo- Zapatista ‘we’ – Appendix 6 Mexican Neo- Zapatismo and Its Impact within Contemporary Social Sciences: Six Theses to Develop – Appendix 7 Mexican Neo- Zapatismo’s Contribution to the Development of Contemporary Critical Thought – Appendix 8 Neo- Zapatista Discoveries: Birthing the New World from Below, Knowing Arts, Creating Sciences – Appendix 9 Mexico and Mexican Neo- Zapatismo in Times of COVID- 19 – Works Cited – Glossary – Translator’s Note.