Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy

Dillon, Samuel, Preston, Julia

ISBN 10: 0374226687 / ISBN 13: 9780374226688

Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004

About this Item

Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!

Seller Inventory # S_480377567

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Opening Mexico: The Making of a Democracy
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication Date: 2004
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374226687
• ISBN 13: 9780374226688
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

The Story of Mexico's political rebirth, by two pulitzer prize-winning reporters

Opening Mexico is a narrative history of the citizens' movement which dismantled the kleptocratic one-party state that dominated Mexico in the twentieth century, and replaced it with a lively democracy. Told through the stories of Mexicans who helped make the transformation, the book gives new and gripping behind-the-scenes accounts of major episodes in Mexico's recent politics.

Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, led by presidents who ruled like Mesoamerican monarchs, came to be called "the perfect dictatorship." But a 1968 massacre of student protesters by government snipers ignited the desire for democratic change in a generation of Mexicans. Opening Mexico recounts the democratic revolution that unfolded over the following three decades. It portrays clean-vote crusaders, labor organizers, human rights monitors, investigative journalists, Indian guerrillas, and dissident political leaders, such as President Ernesto Zedillo-Mexico's Gorbachev. It traces the rise of Vicente Fox, who toppled the authoritarian system in a peaceful election in July 2000.

Opening Mexico dramatizes how Mexican politics works in smoke-filled rooms, and profiles many leaders of the country's elite. It is the best book to date about the modern history of the United States' southern neighbor-and is a tale rich in implications for the spread of democracy worldwide.

About the Author

Julia Preston and Samuel Dillon were The New York Times Mexico bureau chiefs from 1995 to 2000. Along with two other reporters, they won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for their coverage of Mexico's narcotics underworld.