In the Shadows of Mexico's PRI War

This book makes significant contributions to diplomatic history, Cold War studies, and Mexican history. It delivers an engaging narrative that digs deeply into intelligence and diplomatic archives to craft a fascinating story of how the 1959 Cuban Revolution and international aspects of the Cold War shaped domestic politics in 1960s Mexico. These external events, in the author’s view, “changed the course of Mexican history” (232). Renata Keller starts with a synthesis of pre-1959 Mexican history. She argues that disenchantment with the outcome of the 1910 Mexican Revolution by the late 1950s triggered significant social and political opposition to a state that presented itself as the legitimate heir of the 1910 Revolution under the banner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party or the PRI. As opposition mounted and critics began to effectively paint the PRI-led state machinery as the bearer of an unfulfilled 1910 revolutionary dream, the state changed its governance approach. This late 1950s turn, according to Keller, ended an era in which the state had made a conscious effort to avoid the use of force and instead opted for either negotiation or coercion of different social and political groups. The author convincingly shows how the Mexican state did not hesitate to use violence after 1959 and illustrates how this escalated into full-blown state repression throughout the 1960s.

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