The Mestizo State is a very theoretically sophisticated book that analyzes in depth from a sociocritical perspective the centrality of the category of race in the formation of the Mexican liberal state in the nineteenth century and in the postrevolutionary period. Throughout the book, Joshua Lund explores the dilemma of the mestizo state and its racial construction. On the one hand, Indians have been recognized as the nation's authentic source; on the other hand, the Mexican state has accepted the Indian's abandonment, poverty, marginalization, and exploitation since the conquest. These “truths,” supported by politicians and intellectuals, have not resolved the aporia regarding the Indian, who is preserved as a source of tradition and national essence but is not integrated into the capitalist internal market or transformed into a “productive citizen” as an active participant in the modernization of the country. For Lund, this paradox is the mestizo state. And at...

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