Mexicos Mandarins Crafting a Power Elite for the Twenty-First Century [Paperback]

This groundbreaking study marks the culmination of over twenty years of research by one of this country's most prominent Mexico scholars. Roderic Ai Camp provides a detailed, comprehensive examination of Mexico's power elitetheir political power, societal influence, and the crucial yet often overlooked role mentoring plays in their rise to the top. In the course of this book, he traces the careers of approximately four hundred of the country's most notable politicians, military officers, clergy, intellectuals, and capitalists. Thoroughly researched and drawn from in-depth interviews with some of Mexico's most powerful players,Mexico's Mandarinsprovides insight into the machinations of Mexican leadership and an important glimpse into the country's future as it steps onto the global stage.

Roderic Ai Campis Philip M. McKenna Professor of the Pacific Rim at Claremont McKenna College and author ofPolitics in Mexico: The Decline of Authoritarianism(1999),Crossing Swords: Religion and Politics in Mexico(1997), andGenerals in the Palacio: The Military in Modern Mexico(1992).

Mexico's Mandarinsrepresents scholarship of superior quality and is virtually unique in the level of information on which it draws. No other scholar could have written this book and no other scholar will ever be able to reproduce it. I suspect that it will become the definitive work on Mexican elites in the twentieth century. Kathleen Bruhn, author ofMexico: The Struggle for Democratic Development

After thirty years of studying individual Mexican elitespolitical, economic, intellectual, military, and religiousCamp brings together the conclusions from all of his previous research in one capstone volume. This unique study offers the first thorough investigation of Mexico's power elites and, for the first time, identifies the essential role played by mentors in the Mexican system of recruiting, promoting, and facililã