Childhood and Modernity in Cold War Mexico City [Hardcover]

Childhood and Modernity in Cold War Mexico Citytraces the transformations that occurred between 1934 and 1968 in Mexico through the lens of childhood. Countering the dominance of Western European and North American views of childhood, Eileen Ford puts the experiences of children in Latin America into their historical, political, and cultural contexts.

Drawing on diverse primary sources ranging from oral histories to photojournalism, Ford reconstructs the emergent and varying meanings of childhood in Mexico City during a period of changing global attitudes towards childhood, and changing power relations in Mexico at multiple scales, from the family to the state. She analyses children's presence on the silver screen, in radio, and in print media to examine the way that children were constructed within public discourse, identifying the forces that would converge in the 1968 student movement.

This book demonstrates children's importance within Mexican society as Mexico transitioned from a socialist-inspired revolutionary government to one that embraced industrial capitalism in the Cold War era. It is a fascinating study of an extremely important, burgeoning population group in Mexico that has previously been excluded from histories of Mexico's bid for modernity.Childhood and Modernity in Cold War Mexico Citywill be essential reading for students and scholars of Latin American history and the Cold War.

The book is suited for an academic audience due to the authors thorough and detailed research, but Fords clear narrative and persuasive arguments can also reach a broader public. The vast research she conducted is one of the strong points of this volume, which will be of value to a wide range of readers interested not only in tl+