THE SHADOW OF ULYSSES Public Intellectual Exchange Across the U.S. - Mexico Border

Written by one of the most promising young scholars on the Mexican intellectual scene, The Shadow of Ulysses attempts to reconnect the American and Mexican intellectual experiences by exploring historical as well as contemporary issues in both countries. The book's first chapters discuss the relationship between American and Mexican intellectuals in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and offer a sociological comparison of the 1960s intellectual generations in the United States and Mexico. Later chapters provide a critical assessment of two prominent Mexican public intellectuals well known to the American reader: Carlos Fuentes and Jorge Castaneda. The Shadow of Ulysses, the Mexican edition of which was awarded the Alfonso Reyes National Prize, offers a rare glimpse into the development of contemporary Mexican thought and reveals the under-recognized intellectual ties that existed between our two countries in the first half of the twentieth century.

José Antonio Aguilar Rivera is Professor of Political Science at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas. He is the author of En post de la quimera: reflexiones sobres el experimento constitucional atlántico (forthcoming), Cartas Mexicanas de Alexis de Tocqueville (1999) and La sombra de Ulises: ensayos sobre intelectuales mexicanos y norteamericanos (Spanish edition, 1998).