Beginnings of contemporary Mexico

Essays by specialists in several fields that document current Mexican realities and extrapolate what they might portend for country in future. Encompasses wide range of issues and trends, from ethnicity and peasant communities, to church-state relations, unions, environmental concerns, crime, higher education, urban growth, mobility, corruption, democracy and many more. Organized into sections on population, housing and cities; institutions and public policy; and insertion in globalized world.

El llamado ímilagroî mexicano se caracterizó por un crecimiento sostenido de la economía que, sin embargo, no logró reducir la desigualdad de ingresos. La estrategia del desarrollo se tradujo en hacer más ricos a los ricos y más pobres a los pobres, disminuir el paso de la reforma agraria y controlar estrictamente las actividades sindicales. El estudio abarca de mediados de los años treinta a principios de los setenta, por lo que resulta indispensable para entender la crisis del presente.

"Isabela Huffman is a precocious 8 1/2-year-old girl who can't seem to keep herself out of trouble on a visit to Guanajuato, Mexico, with her mother. She wants to be the president when she grows up. Or a ballerina. Or the president and a ballerina. She's dramatic. She sings on the bus, screams like a baby after putting chile powder on her fresh mango and convinces her mom to buy five pair of new shoes for a big family. No matter how many times her mom asks her to just sit down like a normal little girl, she just can't help getting up to take more pictures of her adventures. When will Isabela...

Sharply critical analysis of Mexico's recent round of ambitious structural reforms, particularly of oil industry and finance reforms, which author says show direct line of descent from 18th-century Bourbon reforms, politics of Porfirio Diaz and neoliberal ideals of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, historical antecedents vilified by many on left in Mexico. Author was Mexico's youngest elected governor and is currently serving in Congress.