With an empire stretching across central Mexico, unmatched in military and cultural might, the Aztecs seemed poised on the brink of a golden age in the early sixteenth century. But the arrival of the Spanish changed everything. Imperialism and the Origins of Mexican Culture chronicles this violent clash of two empires and shows how modern Mestizo culture evolved over the centuries as a synthesis of Old and New World civilizations. Colin MacLachlan begins by tracing Spain and Mesoamerica’s parallel trajectories from tribal enclaves to complex feudal societies. When the Spanish laid siege to Tenochtitlán and destroyed it in 1521, the Aztecs could only interpret this catastrophe in cosmic terms. With their gods discredited and their population ravaged by epidemics, they succumbed quickly to Spanish control—which meant submitting to Christianity. Spain had just emerged from its centuries-long struggle against the Moors, and zealous Christianity was central to its imperial vision. But Spain’s conquistadors far outnumbered its missionaries, and the Church’s decision to exclude Indian converts from priesthood proved shortsighted. Native religious practices persisted, and a richly blended culture—part Indian, part Christian—began to emerge. The religious void left in the wake of Spain’s conquests had enduring consequences. MacLachlan’s careful analysis explains why Mexico is culturally a Mestizo country while ethnically Indian, and why modern Mexicans remain largely orphaned from their indigenous heritage—the adopted children of European history.

Their empire unmatched in military and cultural might, the Aztecs were poised on the brink of a golden age, when the arrival of the Spanish changed everything. Colin MacLachlan explains why Mexico is culturally Mestizo while ethnically Indian and why Mexicans remain orphaned from their indigenous heritage—the adopted children of European history.

DIVThe first cultural history of post-1940s Mexico to relate issues of representation and meaning to questions of power; it includes essays on popular music, unions, TV, tourism, cinema, wrestling, and illustrated magazines./div

Revisiting now and then the history of pre-Columbian collections in British museums, Aguirre (English, Wayne State U.) examines select episodes of British engagement with Mexico and Central America between 1821 and 1998 that were driven more by the imperial desire for objects than for territory. Among those episodes are Mexico at the Egyptian Hall

An unfettered, probing dialogue between Mexican and American political analysts on the complex relationship between their countries. Few nations are as closely interrelated as the United States and Mexico. Few relationships between nations are so prickly. America's inveterate problem-solving strikes Mexicans as clandestine imperialism. Mexicans are accused of ignoring the flow of drugs through their country; Americans are accused of saddling Mexico with their drug problem. Americans brood over the influx of Mexican immigrants; Mexicans worry that their culture and traditions are being diluted from the north. These differences are now aired−and their origins made clear−in this landmark book by a former official in the Carter administration and one of Mexico's most respected political scholars. In alternating chapters on foreign policy, economic relations, immigration, and social influence, Robert A. Pastor and JorgeC. Castañeda offer a multifaceted view of the ties and conflicts between their countries.

New concerns with the intersections of culture and power, historical agency, and the complexity of social and political life are producing new questions about the United States' involvement with Latin America. Turning away from political-economic models that see only domination and resistance, exploiters and victims, the contributors to this pathbreaking collection suggest alternate ways of understanding the role that U.S. actors and agencies have played in the region during the postcolonial period. Exploring a variety of nineteenth- and twentieth-century encounters in Latin America, these theoretically engaged essays by distinguished U.S. and Latin American historians and anthropologists illuminate a wide range of subjects. From the Rockefeller Foundation's public health initiatives in Central America to the visual regimes of film, art, and advertisements; these essays grapple with new ways of conceptualizing public and private spheres of empire. As such, Close Encounters of Empire initiates a dialogue between postcolonial studies and the long-standing scholarship on colonialism and imperialism in the Americas as it rethinks the cultural dimensions of nationalism and development.