Mexico and the United States: Ambivalent Vistas

Bibliographical Essay

Bibliographical Essay This essay considers a wide range of works that speak to the history of Mexico, including monographs, general histories, and reference matter. Its main concern, however, is the history of the relationship between Mexico and the United States within the context of the global economy. Students and scholars seeking specific items, such as archival or other primary sources, should consult the notes. Sources for the history of Mexico’s relationship with the United States since 1810 can be found in the multivolume works published annually since 1982 by El Colegio de México, Relaciones México–Estados Unidos, compiled by Marie Claire Fischer de Figueroa; and the various “Mexico” sections of A Bibliography of United States–Latin American Relations since 1810, edited by David F. Trask, Michael C. Meyer, and Roger R. Trask (Lincoln, Nebr., 1968; Supplement, 1979). Assorted bibliographical essays relating to Mexican history are found throughout the Cambridge History of Latin America, edited by Leslie Bethell, especially volumes 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 (Cambridge, Eng., 1984–1986, 1990). For treatment of the major themes in each period of the Mexican past, see the collection of essays in The Oxford History of Mexico, edited by Michael C. Meyer and William H. Beezley (New York, 2000). See also Guide to American Foreign Relations since 1700, edited by Richard Dean Burns (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1983). For recent history, see the foreign relations section of W. Dirk Raat, The Mexican Revolution: An Annotated Guide to Recent Scholarship (Boston, 1982). For U.S.Mexican affairs and border studies, refer to the International Guide to Research on Mexico, edited by Sandra del Castillo and Carlos Martin Gutiérrez (San Diego , Calif., 1987). An analytical survey of recent economic history can be found in Stephen Haber, Herbert S. Klein, Noel Maurer, and Kevin J. Middlebrook, Mexico since 1980 (Cambridge, Eng., 2008). Michael M. Brescia and John C. Super provide a broad sweep of continental history in their North America: An Introduction (Toronto, 2009). Aids for the study of the Greater Southwest are plentiful. A very recent and thorough aid is Borderline: A Bibliography of the United States–Mexico Borderlands, edited by Barbara G. Valk (Los Angeles, 1988). See especially “Archaeology” and “History,” 49–145. See also Ellwyn R. Stoddard, Richard L. Nostrand, and 292 Bibliographical Essay Jonathan P. West, Borderlands Sourcebook: A Guide to the Literature on Northern Mexico and the American Southwest (Norman, Okla., 1983). The sundry bibliographies found in the monumental twenty-seven volume set, The Spanish Borderlands Sourcebooks, edited by David Hurst Thomas (New York, 1991), provide an excellent source of materials for Native American history and the Spanish Southwest. Peter Gerhard’s Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (Cambridge , Eng., 1972) is central for the history of encomiendas, corregimientos, cabildos , and local events. Still useful, though somewhat dated, is Charles Cumberland , “The United States–Mexican Border,” Rural Sociology 25 (1960). See also Jorge A. Bustamante and Francisco Malagamba, Mexico–Estados Unidos: Bibliografía general sobre estudios fronterizos (Mexico, 1980). For recent literature on the maquiladora industry, see Leslie Sklair, Maquiladoras: Annotated Bibliography and Research Guide to Mexico’s In-Bond Industry, 1980–1988 (San Diego, Calif., 1988). Oscar Martínez examines the myriad dimensions of identity on the border, particularly how the border economy has fashioned social relationships over time. See his Border People: Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands (Tucson, Ariz., 1994). World-system models have been best developed by sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein. Three of his projected four volumes have been published: The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1974); II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750 (New York, 1980); and III: The Second Era of Great Expansion of the Capitalist World-Economy, 1730– 1840s (San Diego, Calif., 1989). The best historical work that applies the worldeconomy model is the third volume of Fernand Braudel’s Civilization and Capitalism : 15th–18th Century entitled The Perspective of the World (New York, 1984). For an ethnohistorical analysis that uses modes of production theory, see Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People without History (Berkeley, Calif., 1982). The history and theory of dependency and incorporation in the U.S. Southwest is the subject of Thomas D. Hall’s book Social Change in the Southwest, 1350–1880 (Lawrence , Kans., 1989). Two recent works of imperial history are Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers...