For several years, Gene Hanrahan has attempted to render the copying machine obsolete by reproducing chunks of documents found in the National Archives in a series of volumes he has edited. In his latest endeavor, The Bad Yankee: American Entrepreneurs and Financiers in Mexico, he ventures somewhat beyond facsimile production by telling the “unknown” stories of several colorful American businessmen in Mexico during the Díaz and revolutionary eras. Neither this nor any of the previous works add anything new to our knowledge of Mexico or of the North Americans who sought their fortunes there.
Hanrahan purports to write “an introduction to the story of American entrepreneurs and investors in Mexico ... to encourage young . . . scholars to continue with this incomplete story.” What he produces instead is a hackneyed, badly written, inaccurate rehash of the careers of mostly well-known figures. The book is not based on archival research, and uses only limited public documents. The author has interviewed a number of descendants of the businessmen studied, but their views were clearly biased and it shows. Bad Yankee is a far cry indeed from the solid scholarship of David M. Pletcher’s Rails, Mines, and Progress, the pioneer book on American entrepreneurs in Mexico. Hanrahan, in fact, relied heavily on Pletcher as a source for at least one chapter. He should have left well enough alone.
Bad Yankee is filled with errors. For example, Hanrahan maintains that the Madero revolution was ended by Adolfo de la Huerta (p. 43); that Pancho Villa raided Arizona, and precipitated the incursion of U.S. troops in 1914 (p. 107); and that the Chihuahua power company was on the Río Chonchos (p. 130). Typos abound. It is difficult to easily summarize the instances of muddled understanding of events and chronology.
The general “theme” of the book seems to be that the Americans under study were not as bad as they have been depicted by other historians, and that these entrepreneurs contributed mightily to Mexico’s economic development. This claim may or may not be correct, but some evidence to support it would have been appropriate.
When I began the book, I hoped that it would tell a good story. The elements were certainly in place. Many of the Americans who came to Mexico to make their fortunes during this era were interesting characters. It was a fascinating period in Mexican history. Alas, I was disappointed even in this. One wonders why a book like this was published.
