In this very interesting new study, Amelia Kiddle has offered an interpretation of Mexican cultural diplomacy in the 1930s that is based on the theoretical construct of Erving Goffman for creating a public “face” and then sustaining it through repeated interactions (p. 3). She argues that the national face created by President Lázaro Cárdenas during his administration (1934–40) was based on his own personal charisma, Mexico's revolutionary past, and the nation's progressive policymaking. She examines the maintenance of this projected identity through episodes of binational cooperation from across the region as well as Mexico's progressive domestic policymaking. Thus, we are presented “a multivalent picture of the contemporary significance of the Mexican Revolution in Latin America and the process by which its meaning, so contested at the time, became the basis for Mexico's international face” (p. 5).
Since the revolution, Mexico had served as a haven for political exiles, including Víctor...
