Roderic Ai Camp once again has provided scholars of Mexican public life with an indispensable reference on Mexico’s political leadership. His first edition, biographies through 1975, set a standard of thoroughness for other Mexican government biographers. His second edition brought biographies up through 1982, and this third edition through 1993.
Camp has added six hundred new biographies and has updated all earlier entries and appendixes. The volume becomes a valuable research tool for scholars through information obtained from personal interviews, with details about the politicians’ families and political ties. Besides monographs, the sources include Mexican news magazines, major newspapers, and government directories at the federal, state, and municipal level.
Camp has delved into many U.S.-published directories, as well as those published in Mexico, including the Stanford University volumes of the 1940s and 1950 and this reviewer’s own volumes of 1969, 1971, and 1981. He has also culled from the International Statesmen’s Who’s Who and from Miguel Angel Peral’s pioneering Diccionario biográfico mexicano editions of 1968 and 1970. The Diccionario Porrúa’s extensive sketches of all the cabinet ministers of this century’s presidents were also used. Camp even included biographies from the Quién es quién en la nomenclatura de la ciudad de México editions of 1962 and 1971, which tell about persons of national prestige whose names have been used for Mexico City streets, parks, and public places.
From material in México y sus funcionarios, by Sergio Serra and Roberto Martínez, this volume informs us about the political friendships that have molded the camarillas, or political cliques, and the inner-circle political machines that have become the foundations of Mexican political parties and governmental leadership. Camp seems to have checked every encyclopedia published in Mexico since 1950 to get numerous elusive details on leaders at all levels of public life.
On presidents, this volume provides revealing details of the type of professional activity and studies that shaped their thinking and policies. In the profile of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, president from 1988 to 1994, for example, we find that he received his economics degree from the National University (UNAM) in 1971. His thesis on “Agriculture, Industry, and Employment” was later reflected in his campaign and administrative policies. We learn that before receiving the Ph.D. in political economy from Harvard in 1978, Salinas was a Harvard research assistant in government and in political economy. That Jesús Silva Herzog, a shaper of significant public policy, was on his UNAM thesis committee may explain some of Salinas’ economic orientations. His uncle was the famed political philosopher Antonio Ortiz Mena, longtime head of the Inter-American Development Bank and a governor of the International Monetary Fund, which suggests influences that made Salinas a vigorous advocate of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The volume reflects the growing number of women as political officials. For example, Alicia Arellano Tapia, senator from Sonora from 1964 to 1970, was one of the first women federal senators in Mexico. She subsequently became mayor of Magdalena and of Hermosillo, Sonora. She built a PRI career as a dental surgeon in public health, then as a federal deputy.
Ernesto Zedillo, current president of Mexico, is profiled as having graduated from the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) rather than the UNAM, as did other modern presidents. He received the M.A. and the Ph.D. in economics from Yale, then became noted as an economist dealing with public debt. Being an administrator at the government’s Bank of Mexico led to his appointment as Secretary of Education during 1992-93 in President Salinas’ cabinet.
The appendixes are a treasure trove of details on ambassadors, supreme court justices, federal agency directors, labor leaders, state governments, and members of congress. This volume is essential for any serious researcher of Mexican public life.
