Los origenes de la industria petrolera en México 1900-1925 (review)

This volume is an extremely useful, quick introduction to the history of the oil business in Mexico. At the same time, it offers a short guide to the Archivo Histórico de PEMEX. The main body of the volume opens with a long essay by Alvarez de la Borda detailing the major outlines of the history of the petroleum industry from 1900 to 1925. This basic discussion will be helpful for anyone interested in the major outlines of that story, though there is little that will be unfamiliar to professional historians conversant with the topic. The discussion is always measured and careful, avoiding the polemics that often accompany this theme. It would, therefore, be a good introductory text for Spanish speakers.

A second short essay, written by Eduardo Clavé Almeida, describes the holdings of the Archivo Histórico itself. It includes substantial collections of documents from some of the oil companies expropriated in 1938, augmented by the extensive documentation from those institutions with administrative responsibilities related to petroleum. Not only does the archive cover the history of the oil industry, but it also has documentation involving agrarian, financial, labor, and judicial issues, among others. The dates of documents range from 1850 to 1970. A single collection denominated “Expropiación” contains material from foreign oil companies and organisms created by the various revolutionary and post-revolutionary governments which came to Petroleos Mexicanos at the time that President Lázaro Cárdenas expropriated the majority of privately held companies in 1938. This collection contains 110,000 files, of which well over half have already been cataloged and are now accessible on the Internet. As of the date of the book’s publication, archivists were continuing to work on the period from 1900 to 1930. A collection of annotated documents follows these two essays. Particularly fascinating are the more than fifty pages of balance sheets from the Mexican Eagle Oil Company, ranging in date from 1914 to 1919. These reflect the huge amounts of money that were flowing out of the country into the hands of foreign investors, despite the violence of the Mexican Revolution, as the oil itself was pumped onto tankers along the Gulf Coast.

The volume will be of obvious interest for teaching purposes; students will find the historical essay clear, the guide to the archives immensely helpful (and historians will find it enticing), and the documents themselves fascinating. Those within the Mexican government and at the archive who are responsible for making this outstanding collection accessible and easy to use deserve the thanks of all historians specializing in Mexico, the oil industry, and international business more generally.