This is not a traditional diplomatic history, or even a compendium of wars, treaties, hemispheric conferences, immigration policies, and other topics associated with U.S.-Mexican relations. Instead, it is an intelligent and well-written overview of Mexico, with U.S.-Mexican relations serving as a touchstone and organizing thread. Although the book has no clear overall thesis, much of the text describes the growing influence of the United States on Mexico in the context of a changing global economy.
Following Max Weber, Dirk Raat takes Calvin’s sanctification of private property and productive labor as the leitmotiv of U.S. economic development, and to it contrasts the Mexican Catholic indulgence in “the cult of the festival and the passion for spending” (p. 48). By 1800, U.S. per capita income was twice that of Mexico; by 1877 it was ten times as high. Massive U.S. and European investment in Mexico after 1880 fueled the expansion of the country’s export economy and the improvement of its transportation systems; yet the railroads hauled raw materials to the border to fuel U.S. industrial expansion, while Mexican industry settled for supplying local markets. The thrust of Mexico’s economic policy was to attract foreign investment through tax exemptions, easy access to credit, and protection of private property—all issues that deserve greater attention from the author here.
The United States sought to maintain its privileged position in Mexico during the Revolution of 1910-1920. Its basic objective was to facilitate the establishment of a constitutional government favorable to U.S. business interests, though Woodrow Wilson eventually opposed Victoriano Huerta’s 1913 dictatorship on moral grounds. The United States also strongly opposed revolutionary nationalism, and in 1923 negotiated an agreement with President Alvaro Obregón effectively undermining provisions of Mexico’s 1917 Constitution that had subordinated individual property rights to the national interest.
That agreement signaled the growing importance of U.S. interests in Mexico’s postrevolutionary economy. U.S. oil companies became the leading producers, supplanting British interests; new investors formed partnerships with Mexican entrepreneurs. This economic and political climate was threatened when President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated foreign petroleum companies after a major strike in 1938. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, more concerned with events in Europe, refused to intervene militarily, and reached a settlement with Cárdenas that included a guarantee to purchase Mexican raw materials during World War II.
The Mexican and U.S. economies remained closely linked during the postwar period. The Mexican government promoted industrialization at the expense of workers’ wages and maintained a conservative, hard-money, low-inflation policy that tied the peso to the dollar. Events in the late 1960s, however, unsettled both countries: the Vietnam War drained U.S. economic and moral resources, and the massacre at Tlatelolco shocked Mexicans into thinking more critically about their government, their society, and their future. The 1981 collapse of petroleum prices delivered another jolt to Mexico and prompted the government to stabilize its finances by borrowing $1.8 billion from the United States and $3.85 billion from the International Monetary Fund. Continuing economic problems have fed the popularity of opposition political parties and increased the likelihood of social unrest.
Raat frames his overview with a chapter on the Gran Chichimeca before 1519 and a chapter on Mexamerica today. This is a nice way of interjecting salient cultural matters and placing the history of the borderlands in perspective. This book should attract a large reading audience and will be particularly useful in the classroom.
