Empire and Revolution: The Americans in Mexico since the Civil War (review)

Large corporations supported by a racist U.S. population and a brutal government used Mexico as the testing ground for their nascent economic machinations, and continue to do so today. Mexico, Hart argues, is the birthplace of the American neoliberal empire.

Hart's most persuasive contribution in this work is his genealogy and anthropology of U.S. business in Mexico. Readers looking for corporate smoking guns will find them through an impressive display of resources, especially for the Porfiriato and Revolution. The author uses corporate accounts, letters, and sources from numerous archives to let the corporations tell the story of their intentions toward Mexico in their own words. In addition, his detailed analysis of the personal as well as business relationships among the U.S. corporate elite supports his arguments of collaboration in the early years and its current continuation. Citibank, J.P. Morgan, and others make regular appearances with their network of associates through the entire book. Indeed, the true subtitle of the book ought to be American Business in Mexico rather than just "Americans."

Even the noncorporate Americans in this book are framed in business terms, either as projects of corporate colonies or as collaborators crossing class lines to join with moneyed Americans in racism (236, 253). Hart, however, does provide fascinating case studies of American women who settled in Mexico, using their letters and firsthand accounts. Brief as it is, his discussion of women's lives should prompt historians to look at U.S. interpretations of gender in Mexico. On the matter of American labor, although he states that U.S. workers lived in relative luxury compared to their counterparts, he does not adequately explore the relationships between the working-class Anglos and either their employers or their Mexican co-workers.

Hart takes the standard line that U.S. imperial Protestantism led the charge for cultural destruction of pristine "Mexican" culture. In this approach, Hart portrays both the United States and Mexico as having black and white monocultures. Recent work in Borderland's Studies, such as that by Lepore or Brooks, exposes this fallacy and should encourage scholars to move away from such simplistic cultural interpretations. ¹

In addition, Hart fails to address the Mexican influence on U.S. Christianity, leaving a void in his analysis of religion. U.S. Catholicism, mainline Protestantism, and charismatic groups have all been changed by the 30 million Latinos in the United States—the majority of whom claim Mexican heritage. Even Mexican churches, such as Luz del Mundo, now proselytyze in the United States. Missing this exchange leaves a hole in Hart's look at the "growing [Mexican] cultural and economic influence in the United States" (4).

Hart's penchant to portray the United States as economic postmodern exploiter and Mexico as victim imbalances his analysis. He also places too much weight on the Benito Juarez and Porfirio Díaz years, romanticizes the Lázaro Cárdenas era, glosses the forty years between 1940 and 1980 (as far too many do), and rushes full steam ahead to attack NAFTA . His analysis of free trade, however, provides little insight because his primary source is the New York Times. In addition, the nearly nonexistent discussion of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari and his influence on both the Miguel de la Madrid and Ernesto Zedillo administrations hampers his look at "modernizing" Mexico.

Historians of business, economics, the Porfiriato, and the Revolution will find this poorly edited and oppressively repetitive volume to be an adequate desk reference for American business in Mexico. Scholars of labor, gender, and class will find ideas ready for expansion. Researchers interested in culture, religion, and post-Cárdenas Mexico will do well to look elsewhere.