Concerning the transformations within Chiapas Mayan communities that make processes of change visible, the focus of this book is the period from 1974 when the first hemispheric congress of indigenous people took place in San Cristobal de las Casas, to the Zapatista uprising and the turbulent forces released by it. It takes into account the continuities and disjunctures in community organization and regional relations in preconquest, colonial and indepen­dence times that provide dues to central beliefs and values affecting social control, the ordering of social relations by class and ethnicity, the control of resources, and the degree of autonomy in relation to the region and state in contemporary villages and townships.