Mexico's Unique Role in Governing the Global Economy

Abstract

“It is also silly to make the pretense that the Mexicans (even though their representative in July was, I understand, a graduate of the London School of Economics) and the Brazilians would discuss ‘at the expert level’…. Their function is to sign in the place of the signature,” wrote British Treasury official Wilfried Eady in a January 1944 memorandum on the Bretton Woods negotiations. Christy Thornton’s Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy is essentially written to prove him wrong. Moreover, it aims at dismissing the abundant literature that is constructed around similar such documents. Revolution in Development is an outstanding work of diplomatic history, based on an amazing number of original sources. It is not easy to capture the reader’s attention in such an effective way as Thornton does and to keep it alive while accompanying us throughout Mexico’s history during the twentieth century. Quite astonishingly, for someone who teaches in a sociology department, social history does not surface in this book. Nor does classic political history play a significant role, except for a swift mention of the socialist parties and their supporters in the early Cold War years. But this should not come as a surprise because what Thornton wants to show us is how Mexico could access the button room and influence the governance of the global economy, notwithstanding its role as an outsider in the glimmering world of economic diplomacy.