Routes of Compromise

Building Roads and Shaping the Nation in Mexico, 1917-1952

Michael K. Bess

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English

University of Nebraska Press
01 December 2017

History of the Americas; Road transport industries; Automotive technology & trades

Series: The Mexican Experience

In Routes of Compromise Michael K. Bess studies the social, economic, and political implications of road building and state formation in Mexico through a comparative analysis of Nuevo Leon and Veracruz from the 1920s to the 1950s. He examines how both foreign and domestic actors, working at local, national, and transnational levels, helped determine how Mexico would build and finance its roadways.

While Veracruz offered a radical model for regional construction that empowered agrarian communities, national consensus would solidify around policies championed by Nuevo Leon's political and commercial elites. Bess shows that no single political figure or central agency dominated the process of determining Mexico's road-building policies. Instead, provincial road-building efforts highlight the contingent nature of power and state formation in midcentury Mexico.

By: Michael K. Bess
Imprint: University of Nebraska Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9780803299344
ISBN 10: 0803299346
Series: The Mexican Experience
Pages: 234
Publication Date: 01 December 2017
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

List of Figures Acknowledgments Abbreviations Introduction: Revolutionary Roads Chapter 1: “A Good Road . . . Brings Life to All of the Towns It Passes”: The Fight for a National and Public Road-Building Program Chapter 2: “Everyone Was Ready to Do Their Part”: Road Politics and State Bureaucracies Take Shape in Nuevo León and Veracruz Chapter 3: “So That These Problems May Be Placed in the Hand of the President”: Roads and Motor Travel under Cardenismo Chapter 4: “We March with Mexico for Liberty!”: Road Building in Wartime Chapter 5: “Those Who Do Not Look Forward Are Left Behind”: Alemanismo’s Road to Prosperity Chapter 6: Charting the Contours: State Power in Mexico’s Road-Building Efforts Appendix A: Comparing the Real Cost of Federal and State Spending on Roads Appendix B: Comparing the Budgets for Program for Cooperation on Roads and the Comisión Nacional de Caminos Vecinales Appendix C: Minimum Wages in Nuevo León and Veracruz for Road Workers Notes Bibliography Index

Michael K. Bess teaches history at the Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas in Mexico.

Reviews for Routes of Compromise: Building Roads and Shaping the Nation in Mexico, 1917-1952

A richly documented study of the national, regional, and local politics surrounding road construction in Mexico. Obligatory reading for students interested in state-building, economic development, and everyday conflicts over the spoils of modernization. -Barry Carr, professor emeritus at La Trobe University and coeditor of The New Latin American Left: Cracks in the Empire -- Barry Carr Comparative in approach and sensitive to the transnational dimension and the agendas of politicians, bureaucrats, and members of an array of social groups, Michael Bess's nuanced treatment of Mexican road-building is a must-read for anyone interested in Mexico's postrevolutionary experience. -Samuel Brunk, professor of history at the University of Texas, El Paso, and author of The Posthumous Career of Emiliano Zapata: Myth, Memory, and Mexico's Twentieth Century -- Samuel Brunk A compelling analysis of the essential but overlooked impact of road building in modern Mexico. Exhaustively researched and cogently argued, few recent works are as important to understanding how state power, economic modernization, and nation-building converged in twentieth-century Mexico. -Susan Gauss, associate professor of Latin American and Iberian studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston -- Susan Gauss