Mexico’s Relations with Latin America during the Cardenas Era

This book examines culture and diplomacy in Mexico’s relations with the rest of Latin America during the presidency of Lazaro Cardenas (1934-1940). Drawing on archival research throughout Latin America, the author demonstrates that Cardenas’s representation of Mexico as a revolutionary nation contributed to the formation of Mexican national identity and spread the legacy of the Mexican Revolution of 1910 beyond Mexico’s borders. Cardenas did more than any other president to fulfill the goals of the revolution, incorporating the masses into the political life of the nation and implementing land reform, resource nationalization, and secular public education, and his government promoted the idea that these reforms represented a path to social, political, and economic development for the entire region. Kiddle offers a colorful and detailed account of the way Cardenista diplomacy was received in the rest of Latin America and the influence his policies had throughout the continent.