|9780822960454|Comparative Institutional Change in Twentieth-Century Mexico| After the revolutionary period of 1910-1920, Mexico developed a number of social protection programs to support workers in public and private sectors and to establish safeguards for the poor and the aged. These included pensions, healthcare, and worker’s compensation. The new welfare programs were the product of a complex interrelationship of corporate, labor, and political actors. In this unique dynamic, cross-class coalitions maintained both an authoritarian regime and social protection system for some seventy years, despite the ebb and flow of political and economic tides. By focusing on organized labor, and its powerful role…

|9780822943877|The United States and Mexico|Since Mexico’s defeat in the Mexican-American War of the 1840s, the United States has dominated Mexico economically, militarily, and politically. This long history of asymmetry has created a Mexican distaste for “American arrogance” and an American vision of Mexico as its “backyard,” and has damaged political negotiations, trade pacts, and capital flows, as suspicions and protectionism have undermined diplomacy. Despite this, the two nations remain joined at the hip: more than 80 percent of Mexico’s exports are to the United States, and the majority of foreign investment in Mexico comes from America.In Unequal Partners, Sidney Weintraub…

|9780822962847|The Epic Life Of Pedro Bohorques|Described in his lifetime as “mad,” “a dreamer,” “quixotic,” and “a lunatic,” Pedro Bohorques is one of the most fascinating personalities of Spanish colonial America. A common man from an ordinary Andalusian family, he sought his fortune in the new world as a Renaissance adventurer. Smitten with the idea of the mythical cities of gold, Bohorques led a series of expeditions into the jungles of Peru searching for the paradise of El Dorado. Having mastered the Quechua language of the countryside, he presented himself as a descendent of Inca royalty and quickly rose to power…

|9780822964186|Technology, Social Change, and the Hazards of Progress in Mexico City, 1860-1910| By the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to modernize and industrialize Mexico City had the unintended consequence of exponentially increasing the risk of fire while also breeding a culture of fear. Through an array of archival sources, Anna Rose Alexander argues that fire became a catalyst for social change, as residents mobilized to confront the problem. Advances in engineering and medicine soon fostered the rise of distinct fields of fire-related expertise while conversely, the rise of fire-profiteering industries allowed entrepreneurs to capitalize on crisis. City on Fire demonstrates that both…

|9780822945505|Popular Claims to the City in Mexico, 1879-1932|Written as a social history of urbanization and popular politics, this book reinserts “the public” and “the city” into current debates about citizenship, urban development, state regulation, and modernity in the turn of the century Mexico. Rooted in thousands of pages of written correspondence between city residents and local authorities, mostly with the city council of Morelia, the rhetoric and arguments of resident and city council dialogues often highlighted a person’s or group’s contributions to the public good, effectively positioning petitioners as deserving and contributing members of the urban public. Making an Urban…