Dictablanda: Politics, Work and Culture in Mexico, 1938–1968 ed. by Paul Gillingham and Benjamin T. Smith (review)
Dictablanda’s publication marks a watershed in the study of postrevolutionary Mexico. Its subtitle, “Politics, Work, and Culture,” acknowledges the New Cultural History of Mexico’s significance, but highlights two other “arenas of power”(p. viii). A fourth, violence, receives overdue attention, as well. As Gillingham provocatively posits: “circuses were important, so too was bread; and so too were guns”(p. 6). The collection’s theoretical pluralism and thematic diversity defies easy characterization.