In this timely new book, the first comprehensive social history of Mexico to appear in English in more than a decade, James Cockcroft provides both the historical background and the analysis of economic, political, and social change that are necessary for understanding the Mexico of today. In the first part of the book, Cockcroft narrates the history of Mexico from precolonial times until 1940, combining material from archaeology, ethnohistory, and contemporary chronicles to fill out the picture of Mexican political and social organization before the Spanish and under their domination. He then discusses the early emergence of capitalism, the defeat of the worker-peasant revolution in 1910, and the gradual consolidation of a strong capitalist state to accommodate the needs of the Mexican and foreign bourgeoisies. The second part is a more thematic treatment of modern Mexico, and discusses agriculture, industry, oil, the state, political developments, the role of the military and the church, migration, the peasantry, trade unions and the labor movement. The final chapters analyze the recent elections, the financial crisis, and the role of the IMF. "James Cockcroft's book analyzes the state as an agency of class rule with telling effect ... a landmark book that could become a Mexicanist classic comparable to Barbarous Mexico in impact and durability, but analytically superior ... will undoubtedly have an appeal in the undergraduate classroom."
— John M. Hart, professor of Latin American
history,
"A pioneering work that guts fashionable theories in its brilliant analysis of the role of the poor in capital accumulation." — Adolfo Gilly, professor Universidad Nacional
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