This fine collection of essays treats the nature and evolution of popular political and social movements in Mexico during the last 20 years. It covers the varied human geography of that nation from Chiapas to Sonora and from urban textile workers to migrant agricultural laborers. Two essays are gender-specific. The authors, who teach in the United States, Mexico, and Britain, represent a wide range of viewpoints. The result is a far-reaching and important book for social scientists and historians.

These essays demonstrate an advanced level of appreciation for the nuances of Mexican regionalism and the limits of state corporativism and autonomy. They place the development of Mexican civic culture in the context of longer-range Mexican historical processes. The authors utilize oral history, specific eyewitness reports, theoretical essays, and documentary sources. While some write with the elan of sympathizers and participants, they all communicate with the analytical voice of good scholarship.

The 16 essays are superbly introduced by Joe Foweraker. He offers a theoretical context from the perspective of political science, pointing out that the popular movements under examination are well defined by the demands they make. He identifies the unrest and repression of 1968 as a watershed followed by the rise of popular formations. In an ably written conclusion, Ann Craig argues that when these popular organizations and their individual members demanded that the government respect their civic rights and political independence, such demands grew out of the citizenry’s wider political experience. Craig sees this as a qualitative change from the more materialistic demands of earlier times.

Alan Knight provides the volume with a masterful historical overview. He eloquently links economic processes to social movements, and in so doing notes the continuities between the rise of middle-class opposition to Díaz in 1908 and support for Vasconcelos in 1929, Almazán in 1940, and the PAN since 1960. He underscores the need for further consideration of Morelos when he asks, “Were the Morelos land seizures prior to the 1910 revolution substantially similar to those that characterized the early 1930s” preceding Cardenismo, and those of the 1970s antedating Echevarria’s reparto (page 91)? He identifies a long undercurrent of local and regional popular mobilizations.

This book is suitable for classroom use in upper-division and graduate-level Mexican history and political science courses. It is plagued, however, by crowded, 46-line pages that repeatedly caused me to lose my place, and by too many jaw-breakingly awkward sentences. But the importance of the book transcends these drawbacks.

The authors generally believe that in the context of crisis and conflict, Mexico is experiencing a rapid growth of civic participation. Some see it in terms of difficult transitions; one anticipates conflagration; most see the possibility of a broader polity emerging, but with uncertain results. Mexicanists should read this book.