Mexico: The Struggle for Modernity

Cumberland, Charles C. Mexico: The Struggle for Modernity, London: Oxford University Press, 1968. [paperback]

From the author's preface:

Between 1940 and 1960, phenomenal change took place in Mexico, but it came only after an earlier revolution remarkable as much for its violence as for its program. The costs of that conflagration - in lives, in property, in trauma - cannot be calculated, nor can the stimuli for the destruction be fixed with precision. But revolutions of such ferocity are spawned by deep seated ills, not in passing fancies. This book is an attempt to clarify and to explain the social and economic issues which gave the Mexican Revolution such a distinctive stamp, and to account for the direction and the nature of the change. It is an attempt to view nearly half a millennium of Mexican history through the eyes of those who suffered from inequality and who finally exploded with incredible violence.

Hispanic American Historical Review