cover image OPENING MEXICO: The Making of a Democracy

OPENING MEXICO: The Making of a Democracy

Julia Preston, Samuel Dillon, . . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $30 (594pp) ISBN 978-0-374-22668-8

Preston and Dillon, former Mexico bureau chiefs for the New York Times , combine personal experience and journalistic accounts in this thoughtful report on the trials of Mexico's turbulent first taste of democracy after decades of authoritarian rule. With grace and candor, the authors capture this transitional period, which has been characterized by a slow and tense crumbling of Mexico's main political party, the PRI (a victim of its own incompetence and hubris), and a rapid increase in civic fervor. This is a portrait of historical change of seismic proportion, told from individual perspectives, depicting an intriguing web of heroic Mexicans struggling to bring about cultural change while others tend toward corruption. As a result, this book is as bleak as it is insightful. Hopeful victories in this "imperfect democracy" are few and far between. The authors detail government negligence and deception during the devastating earthquake of 1985, cunning reporters and renowned intellectuals attempting to pierce the regime's stronghold on the media, and the ongoing low-intensity warfare against deeply divided indigenous communities in the southern state of Chiapas. Also featured here is the controversial investigation of Mexico's narcotics underworld that implicates two high-level PRI officials as "associates" of Mexico's most notorious drug trafficker, Carillo Fuentes. This type of coverage earned the authors strong criticism from the authorities in Mexico and a Pulitzer Prize—the latter well deserved. B&w photos. (Mar.)