The Mexican Shock: Its Meaning for the United States

The United States has long misunderstood its neighbor to the south, writes a distinguished Mexican scholar, and the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement has not helped matters. "After years of being perceived largely as a problem for Washington," he argues, "Mexico now became part of the solution: an apparently growing, dynamic, 'emerging' market for U.S. goods and services--especially those unable to penetrate other markets and appeal to other tastes." It earned that vision after a misleading campaign by the Bush and Clinton administrations to portray Mexico as progressive, democratic, and reform-minded, qualities far from the truth. Updating Octavio Paz's critique of power in Mexico, Castañeda calls for thoroughgoing reforms in the Mexican government, and he offers thoughts on matters like the murder of presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio and the inability of the young technocrats who now rule Mexico to replace the old system of one-party rule with democratic institutions. This well-reasoned book of history and current events has excited much discussion, and it deserves our attention.