This innovative monograph is of major significance for not only all students and academics who undertake research on the history of Mexico during the half-century prior to the onset in 1910 of the Mexican Revolution but also the parallel community of scholars who specialise in the history of ideas, philosophy and science throughout Latin America in this period. Its principal purpose is to revisit the influential thesis of the Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea that the political-ideological group dubbed 'the scientists' by their opponents were guided by positivist ideas, especially those of the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. Its structure embraces, first, an overview of previous research upon the formation and differentiation of 'the scientists' and the black legend surrounding their legitimisation of the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico for 31 years until going into exile in 1911 after 27 uninterrupted years in the presidency, followed by an analysis, based upon primary sources that include Spencer's journal articles, of the origins of the theory of evolution long before Darwin and, in particular, the significant impact of Bacon and Newton upon the philosophy of Spencer. Having established what Spencer actually believed and wrote, the book then provides an analysis of the prolific writings, both published and archival, of two of the leading, although ideologically different, representatives of 'the scientists', Francisco Bulnes and Justo Sierra, demonstrating that their eclectic discourses used the ideas of the American Social Darwinists, and those from Spencer, Charles Darwin, Auguste Comte, and other European writers whose ideas reached them in a fragmented and second-hand fashion in an arbitrary fashion to support their conservative views of the need to promote political order and socio-economic progress, notwithstanding their belief that the ethnic make-up of Mexican society was a barrier to the country's modernisation. It concludes that far from forming a homogeneous elite guided by positivist ideas, 'the scientists' lacked a clear leader, and had an ambivalent relationship with Díaz. This revisionist book is of relevance for not only Mexicanists but also students of positivism in other Latin American countries - notably Brazil, because hitherto Zea's assessment of the Spencerianism of 'the scientists' has tended to be applied to the region as a whole by a process of inaccurate extrapolation.

This book breaks new ground in the historiography of Mexico during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz by subjecting to detailed analysis the traditional belief that the ideology of the intellectual/political elite known as ‘the scientists’ was grounded in the philosophical ideas of Herbert Spencer.

This text is intended for not only students and academics who undertake research on the history of Mexico during the half-century prior to the onset in 1910 of the Mexican Revolution, but also the parallel community of specialists on the history of ideas, philosophy and science throughout Latin America in this period. Its principal focus is to revisit the influential thesis of the Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea that the ideological group dubbed 'the scientists' by their opponents were guided by Positivism, particularly as interpreted by Herbert Spencer. It begins by reviewing previous research upon the formation and differentiation of 'the scientists', and the black legend which assumes that they legitimised the long dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz.

Intertwining policy analysis and ethnography, José Tenorio examines how, and why now, the promotion of healthy lifestyles has been positioned as an ideal ‘solution’ to obesity and how this shapes the preparation, sale and consumption of food in schools in Mexico. This book situates obesity as a structural problem enabled by market-driven policy change, problematizing the focus on individual behavior change which underpins current obesity policy. It argues that the idea of healthy lifestyles draws attention away from the economic and political roots of obesity, shifting blame onto an ‘uneducated’ population. Deploying Foucault’s concept of dispositif, Tenorio argues that healthy lifestyles functions as an ensemble of mechanisms to deploy representations of reality, spaces, institutions and subjectivities aligned with market principles, constructing individuals both as culprits for what they eat and the prime locus of policy intervention to change diets. He demonstrates how this ensemble enmeshes within the local cultural and economic conditions surrounding the provisioning of food in Mexican schools, and how it is contested in the practices around cooking. Expanding the conversation on the politics of food in schools, obesity policy and dominant perspectives on the relation between food and health, this book is a must-read for scholars of food and nutrition, public health and education, as well as those with an interest in development studies and policy enactment and outcomes.

David Alfaro Siqueiros was perhaps the most important communist painter of the twentieth century. This book, the first sustained engagement with Siqueiros’s work in the English language, focuses on the artist’s late murals, which are both aesthetically innovative and politically provocative. It places Siqueiros in an international context, revealing that the dogmatism he has been charged with was in reality a complex phenomenon. It provided a foundation for – rather than an obstacle to – his efforts to create an art embedded in the day-to-day concerns and theoretical debates of the world-wide mass movement he saw himself as a part of.

This book describes the political-philosophical controversies in nineteenth-century France and Mexico. Frausto argues that these controversial spaces and times integrate humanities, sciences, and technologies. The power of the metaphysical artifact is a democratic metaphor to transcend disciplinary boundaries and welcome different perspectives.

In the late nineteenth century, the Mexican government, seeking to fortify its northern borders and curb migration to the United States, set out to relocate “Mexico-Texano” families, or Tejanos, on Mexican land. In Colonizing Ourselves, José Angel Hernández explores these movements back to Mexico, also known as autocolonization, as distinct in the history of settler colonization. Unlike other settler colonial states that relied heavily on overseas settlers, especially from Europe and Asia, Mexico received less than 1 percent of these nineteenth-century immigrants. This reality, coupled with the growing migration of farmers and laborers northward toward the United States, led ultimately to passage of the 1883 Land and Colonization Law. This legislation offered incentives to any Mexican in the United States willing to resettle in the republic: Tejanos, as well as other Mexican expatriates abroad, were to be granted twice the amount of land for settlement that other immigrants received. The campaign worked: ethnic Mexicans from Texas and the Mexican interior, as well as Indigenous peoples from Mexico, established numerous colonies on the northern frontier. Leading one of the most notable back-to-Mexico movements was Luis Siliceo, a Texan who, with a subsidized newspaper, El Colono, and the backing of Porfirio Díaz’s administration, secured a contract to resettle Tejano families across several Mexican states. The story of this partnership, which Hernández traces from the 1890s through the turn of the century, provides insight into debates about settler colonization in Mexico. Viewed from various global, national, and regional perspectives, it helps to make sense of Mexico’s autocolonization policy and its redefinition of Indigenous and settler populations during the nineteenth century.