The relationship between business and politics is crucial to understanding Mexican history, and Pesos and Politics explores this relationship from the mid-nineteenth century dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz through the Mexican Revolution (1876–1940). Historian Mark Wasserman argues that throughout this era, over the course of successive regimes, there was an evolving enterprise system that had to balance the interests of the Mexican national elite, state and local governments, large foreign corporations, and individual foreign entrepreneurs. During and after the Revolution these groups were joined by organized labor and organized peasants. Contrary to past assessments, Wasserman argues that no one of these groups was ever powerful enough to dominate another. Because Mexican governments and elites committed themselves to economic models that relied on foreign investment and technology, they had to reach a balance that simultaneously attracted foreign entrepreneurs, but did not allow them to become too powerful or too privileged. Concentrating on the three most important sectors of the Mexican economy: mining, agriculture, and railroads, and employing a series of case studies of the careers of prominent Mexican business people and the operations of large U.S.-owned ranching and mining companies, Wasserman effectively demonstrates that Mexicans in fact controlled their economy from the 1880s through 1940; foreigners did not exploit the country; and, Mexicans established, sometimes shakily, sometimes unplanned, a system of relations between foreigners, elite and government (and later unions and peasant organizations) that maintained checks and balances on all parties.

Mexico is reinventing itself. It is moving toward a more tolerant, global, market oriented, and democratic society. This new edition of "Changing Structure of Mexico" is a comprehensive and up-to-date presentation of Mexico's political, social, and economic issues. All chapters have been rewritten by noted Mexican scholars and practitioners to provide a lucid and informative introductory reader on Mexico. The book covers such topics as Mexico's foreign economic policy and NAFTA; maquiladoras; technology policy; and Asian competition; as well as domestic economics such as banking, tax reform, and oil/energy policy; the environment; population and migration policy; the changing structure of political parties; and values and changes affecting women.

This title examines Mexican politics in the wake of Cardenismo, and the dawn of Miguel Aleman's presidency. This new book focuses on the decade of the 1940s, and analyzes Alcmanismo into the early years of the 1950s. Based upon a decade of intensive investigation, it is the first broad and substantial study of the political life of the Mexican nation during this period, thus opening a new era to historical investigation. Analytical yet lively, mixing political and cultural history, Mexico in the 1940s captures the humor, passion, and significance of Mexico during the World War II and post-war years when Mexicans entered the era called "the miracle" because of the nation's economic growth and political stability. Niblo develops the case that the Mexico of today -- politically and executively centralized, stressing business and industry, corrupt, ignoring the needs of the majority of the population -- has its roots in the decade and a half after 1940. Finally, Mexico in the 1940s offers a unique interpretation of Mexican domestic politics in this period, including an explanation of how political leaders were able to reverse the course of the Mexican Revolution in the 1940s; an original interpretation of corruption in Mexican political life, a phenomenon that did not end in the 1940s; and an analysis of the relationship between the U.S. media interests, the Mexican state and the Mexican media companies that still dominate mass communication today.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.