This short collection of essays on contemporary Mexico stems from a 1984 conference sponsored by the British-Mexican Society at the Latin American Studies Institute in London. There are 11 contributors, most of whom are unknown to our scholarly community. The overall value of this collection is that it provides some useful perspectives on conditions in Mexico as of 1984, many of the authors are not academics, and the views presented are primarily those of non-North Americans.
The chapters do not contain a unifying theme. They cover such topics as the financial crisis, political changes, consequences of the nationalization of the banks, foreign policy issues, and agricultural and food policies. Although many of the essays are devoid of scholarly treatment, and ignore, for the most part, valuable research accomplished in the United States (one, on the Mexican left, does not even merit publication), some conclusions are worth highlighting. William Chislet, a Financial Times correspondent, emphasizes two points in his interpretation of Mexico’s fiscal situation: 1) it is largely the product of internal decisions, and 2) the maintenance of the domestic price of oil was a major error of José López Portillo’s administration. Norman Cox, former British ambassador to Mexico, provides an insightful and prescient analysis of municipal elections, a subject on which very little has appeared in English. He notes the willingness of PRI to accommodate a wide variety of candidates, irrespective of ideology, as helpful to their cause at the polls. George Philip, in his assessment of the political system, correctly identifies the importance of the reduction in public spending as a critical political tool of the regime, and raises the importance of the press in intraelite conflicts. The chapters on food policy and undocumented workers are carefully researched, and offer interesting insights; the same is true for the briefer contribution by Diane Stewart on the consequences of the hank nationalization.
In general, then, this collection will be useful primarily to specialists looking for brief and current interpretations of selective issues facing Mexico in the 1980s.
