Customer Reviews

The Mexico Reader: History, Culture, Politics (The Latin America Readers)

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Different and refreshing approach to Mexican history. Insightful and informative selections from both well known and more obscure original sources. Sections are brief and on point. Excellent bedside book. Outstanding as a stand alone work and valuable as a reference to more complete treatment of subjects you find particularly interesting. Balanced and objective. Best work on Mexico I've read in quite some time.

The Mexico Reader is a compilation of essays, where you hear/read the authors voices, not the 21st century's historians point of view. What I enjoyed most about this book was the historian's selection of essays dealing with the same time period. Quite often they would chose very compelling essays showing opposite ends of the political discussion. That I found refreshing!

If I had known this book before I could have helped my students a lot better than I did. Why do I like this book so much? Because it is a very
wise selection of a very wide variety of texts about Mexican history and culture. It is a great anthology that will give its readers a very good picture of Mexican Culture. The authors chosen are excellent. If you are a student or a teacher of Mexican Culture, this is a book you should read. Moreover, for those of you that only want to reach the Medieval ideal: Mixing learning and enjoyment, this is also a book for you.
Dr. Rafael Furlong De la G. (PhD Litt.)

Mexico's history in bite size chunks, and with plent of meat. Cannot recommend this book too higly. Nearly 800 pages containing close to 100 essays and excerpts, all carefully chosen and very readable, cover Mexico's history from the bad old heart-ripping-out days through the machinations of modern politics. While this kind of book can so often be dry and mind-numbing, this collection is fresh and fascinating, partly because of the varying viewpoints and writing style of the many authors.

The wonderful historical anecdotes -- Villa's and Zapata's`meeting the night before their triumphant march into Mexico city, Cortez's own recount of his first meeting with Montezuma -- are worth the price of the book. But, it's the book's contribution to a person's attempt to understand Mexico's highly complex culture, that is (for me) what makes it so powerful. The editors demonstrate their skill in their selection of the first three essays: the first by a Mexican basher that's filled with sterotypes that unfortunately form the basis for the many misconceptions held by Mexico's neighbors to the north; the second is by a Mexican nut who can't decide whether he hates or admires the US, and holds racial views that are as radical as those of Adolph Hitler; the third essay is by the nobel laureate, Octavio Paz. When I saw his name, I immediately realized what the editors were getting at -- give the readers a nut from each side of the fringe and then give them a distinguished voice of reason. But, the editors surprise us by selecting an essay by Paz that is soley dedicated to the significance of the verb chingar (to f***) within the Mexican culture. The essay is brilliant, but it does nothing to dispel the craziness of the first two. In summary, this is a book that not only informs but, more importantly, makes one think! I treasure it.

Stacks of great articles may be found within. I highly recommend this to any people with Mexican origin or just interest.

This book is exactly what I needed for class. The bookstore was selling it for over $75. I bought it for under $20

You need to already know a good bit about Mexican history. With some knowledge these eye-opening essays give the reader diverse perspectives of modern day Mexico.

Anyone looking for documents for use in a history class, would be well advised to use this text.