El horizonte tecnologico de Mexico bajo la mirada de Jesus Rivero Quijano (review)

In 1994 Maria del Carmen Aguirre Anaya received the Dr. Enrique Beltrán Prize for the History of Mexican Science and Technology for her doctoral dissertation on Mexican entrepreneur Jesús Rivero Quijano. The current book under review is an expanded and revised version of that work. Aguirre's principle goal is to analyze the formation of Mexican technological thinking from the era of Porfirio Díaz to 1940, the generally accepted beginning of Mexico's modern economic development. Aguirre contends that, although the conventional wisdom holds that foreign technology formed the basis for Mexico's industrial development of that period, in fact Mexico's changing social environment permitted the "domestication" of the new technologies. The author focuses on Puebla textile entrepreneur Jesús Rivero Quijano, who not only promoted his ideas about Mexico's economic development but who also introduced new technologies and production changes into his factories in the crucial decade of the 1920s. Aguirre examines Rivero as an example of the new Mexican businessman with a broader vision of Mexican industrial development compared to the old fashioned industrial elite interested only in immediate profits. She notes that such scholars as Stephen Haber readily acknowledge the latter but neglect the existence of such entrepreneurs as Rivero.

Aguirre carried out extensive research in newspapers, journals and primary sources of the era, and has written an important new approach to Mexico's industrial history. Her contribution would have been stronger, however, had she examined Rivero's model of industrial development within the contemporary restraints of Mexico's pre-1940 economy.