Collisions with History: Latin American Fiction and Social Science from "El Boom" to the New World Order (review)
Díaz’s political coalition. Two other entries seem not to be biographies at all. William French describes the characteristics that are common to the exchange of love letters between commoners. This interesting essay also examines the different phases that are typical in the exchange of love letters and the frequent outcome wherein society casts shame upon the young woman while her lover suffers no harm and proceeds to court yet another woman. The other professes to be a biography of Gabriel Espíndola Martínez, a tequila master. But the entry instead expresses his views on how best to imbibe and savor tequila. The final section is the printout of an oral interview with the tequila master, in which he describes his education and the course of his career in the production of tequila. His career is rather uninteresting and so idiosyncratic that it seems not to invite any comparison to the other biographies in the collection. A good number of instructors in Mexican history will incorporate this compilation into their reading lists. Many others will add one or two of the most interesting biographies to their personal lists of illustrative cases to reference when appropriate.