Paul Gillingham

Magisterial... This fine account does well to remind that the best history is about fact, not fiction

A masterful account of one of the world's most complex and storied nations

Lively, engaging... [Gillingham] shows that the country has thrived for centuries because of its diversity, not in spite of it

New York Times, 'Six Books We Loved This Week'

A breathtaking new book . . . every one of [its] pages is worth reading . . . Gillingham writes with sparkling verve, and reveals Mexican history in all its kaleidoscopic complexity

An engrossing read... Enormous but enjoyable... On page after page, [Gillingham's] narrative remains grounded in the smaller-scale experience of the communities that persisted under a power that has always been more spectacular than strong... At times, as Gillingham makes clear, democracy of the Mexican variety has outshined the American kind

One of the best recent area studies of Mexico, covering half a millennium, from Aztec domination via three centuries of Spanish imperialism to revolution and independence. Paul Gillingham writes as engagingly as the celebrated Mexican columnist Armando Fuentes Aguirre (‘Catón’), but with the rigour of Hugh Thomas' Cuba or John Lynch's Bolívar

Magisterial… full of rich detail… has set a new standard

Vivid ... With an eye for revealing details and a rejection of tired bromides, Gillingham describes a cultural melting pot that, despite hindrances, has succeeded better than some more powerful nations in living up to its ideals

Superb ... Essential, lively reading for anyone wishing to understand Mexico and contemporary geopolitics alike

Gillingham offers a vibrant and thought-provoking account ... Gillingham offers valuable historical context on Mexican immigration to the U.S.

In taking on half a millennium of Mexican history, Gillingham deftly maneuvers to convey both its ironies and complexities. It is a wild ride

Erika Pani, author of Torn Asunder: Republican Crises and Civil Wars in the United States and Mexico, 1848-1867 and Professor of History, El Colegio de México

The result of a long and erudite engagement with what Mexico has meant historically, Paul Gillingham’s book offers a unique and enlightening view of the five centuries that made Mexico. The local, the national, and the global meet, blending the big with the minute. Wonderful storytelling, one of those rare happenstances of informing, explaining, and delighting

Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo, author of Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea and Professor of History, University of Chicago

A rollicking and stereotype-busting tour through five centuries of Mexican history. As Gillingham demonstrates, it's Mexico — not the United States — that merits the title of the world's earliest and greatest melting pot. Sweeping from the Sonoran copper mines to the rainforests of Chiapas to Mexico City’s mansions, Gillingham dissects the country's politics, ideas, and contradictions with flair. The rare book that is as entertaining as it is learned and ingeniously argued

Deborah Cohen, author of Last Call at the Hotel Imperial and Director of the Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs

This is the history of a country at the center of the world, from the precarious beginnings of colonialism to the violent throes of democracy. Gillingham has written a one-of-a-kind book, populated by large and small characters, spanning five hundred years of conflict and resilience, all in a masterful prose and a sharp, intelligent dialogue with the reader. The universality and uniqueness of this story makes us all Mexican

Pablo Piccato, author of A Brief History of Violence in Mexico and Professor of History, Columbia University

It begins in 1511 with the shipwreck of two Spanish sailors in Yucatán. Only ten years later, an army of European adventurers and indigenous rebels seized the island city of Tenochtitlán, seat of one of the world’s great empires. It would become Mexico City, and marked the collision of two radically different worlds. Spaniards discovered tomatoes, chocolate and the most sophisticated city they had ever seen. For Mexicans the encounter brought horses, wheels, but also lethal germs – sparking a cataclysmic century of disease that would kill a majority of the indigenous population. 
 
Paul Gillingham’s superb history chronicles how this convulsion led to a startling recombination of cultures. He shows how the industrial mining of Mexico’s silver transformed the wealth and trade of the world, making it the centre of the first truly global economy. We then see how independence from Spain went on to bring calamitous wars with the United States and France. One of the world’s great social revolutions then remade Mexico and ushered in a one-party state that, whatever its shortcomings, brought peace throughout many of the global horrors of the twentieth century – before the country collapsed into violence in the drug wars of the 2000s. 
 
Mexico: A History uses the latest research to dazzling effect, showing how often Mexico has been one of the world’s great innovators; a dynamic and vital shaper of world affairs.

Paul Gillingham

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