The substance of this work is a multitude of data and historical information revealing what Mexico purportedly has invented, developed, or adapted as a part of its culture and contributed to world culture in general. The two volumes contain twenty-seven chapters whose subject headings range from minerals, animals, and the maguey to literature, art, and philosophy. Each chapter is subdivided into topics related (in the compiler’s mind) to the subject heading of the chapter. Altogether, there are some 345 individual topics which cover the time period of pre-Columbian days to the present.
The work is laudible as a first effort. It contains a vast array of information, startling perhaps to the neophyte, but probably already familiar to the serious student and scholar. The overall quality of the work suffers because it attempts to discuss too many items in too limited a space. Also one may question the author’s placing of emphasis. For example, an entire chapter is devoted to the maguey plant, while the history, effect, and contributions of positivism in Mexico are compressed into two paragraphs. The chapter on astronomy in Mexico is twice as long as that on literature. Only single paragraphs are devoted to such giants as Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros, and O’Gorman. There is no bibliography, although reference is made from time to time to such writers as Caso, Díaz del Castillo, Cortés, and several of the codices. Such weak points are to be expected in an initial undertaking of such proportions, but a work of this kind is vitally needed, to clear up misconceptions about a nation and people of rising importance to the modern world.
