Mexico in the Global Sixties -- Mexico's "Restless" Left and the Resurrection of Lazaro Cardenas -- "Luniks and Sputniks in Chapultepec!": The 1959 Soviet Exhibition and Peaceful Coexistence in Mexico -- Mexico's New Internationalism: Regional Leadership amid the Tumult of the Cuban Revolution -- The "Spirit of Bandung" in Mexican National Politics -- The "Preferred Revolution": Confronting the Crisis of Mexican Neutralism -- New Left Splits: The Implosion of the Movimiento de Liberacion Nacional -- Apex of Internationalism: Pursuing a Global Pivot -- The Last Good Neighbor -- Into the Global 1970s.
Summary:
"The last good neighbor tells the story of the Cold War in Mexico from a perspective that is simultaneously local, regional, and global. Eric Zolov shows how the strategic and discursive framework of the "Good Neighbor" (FDR's foreign policy of non-intervention and friendly relations with Latin America) shaped and ultimately defined Mexico's efforts to become a significant actor in the Global Cold War. Analyzing social protest, cultural politics, and international relations, Zolov systematically explores the impact of Third World internationalism and the rise of a "New Left" on Mexican politics and culture, situating Mexico's unique bilateral relationship with the United States within the complexities of these transnational forces. Drawing upon extensive archival research-diplomatic records, declassified Mexican internal security documents, and numerous other sources drawn from research conducted in Mexico, the United States, and Great Britain-, Zolov's account of the "long 1960s" in Mexico offers us a revised understanding of the history of U.S.-Mexican relations, Mexican domestic politics and the evolution of the Mexican left, and Mexico's role as an active player in the international politics of the period. The first chapter explores the start of Lopez Mateos' presidency and the emergence of a "restless left," the result of the regime's violent suppression of unions and workers' movements in 1959. These transformations in Mexican domestic politics occurred at the same time as shifts in the world order that offered Mexico the opportunity to move from outlier to epicenter. The following chapters look at subsequent developments in Mexico's "global pivot," as Zolov terms it, examining the intensification of Soviet-Mexican relations as part of Krushchev's strategy of "Peaceful Coexistence," and U.S.-Mexican relations in the context of the unfolding of the Cuban revolution. Chapter 5 focuses on President Kennedy's visit to Mexico in the summer of 1962 and reveals the complex, contradictory ways in which different parties leveraged the discourse of the Good Neighbor: in support of Lopez Mateos' ambitions of positioning Mexico as a global player, on the one hand, and on the other, as part of Washington's own strategic vision of U.S.-Latin American relations, including efforts to blunt the impact of Mexican internationalism. Turning to the internal politics of the Mexican left, chapter 6 considers the significance of the split between the "Old" and "New Left," and within this New Left, divisions between "vanguardist" and cosmopolitan sensibilities. The resultant collapse of the left as an opposition force created the opportunity for Lopez Mateos to anoint the pro-American, anti-Communist Gustavo Diaz Ordaz as his successor. The final chapters focus on the final two years of Lopez Mateos' presidency, the period of Mexico's most sustained activism on the global stage, and on Diaz Ordaz's decision to withdraw from the activist foreign policy of his predecessor at the height of Mexico's global prominence. Diaz Ordaz's turn away from a progressive agenda abroad coincided with his rupture with the nation's leftwing intelligentsia, culminating in the 1968 student protests and brutal government response. THE LAST GOOD NEIGHBOR will be of interest to scholars of history, Latin American studies, and international relations."-- Provided by publisher
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.