Triumphs and Tragedy: A History of the Mexican People

The Maya and Olmecs mastered painting, sculpture and astronomy, but after the Spanish conquest the glories of ancient Mexico became dim ancestral memories. Mexican history, writes Ruiz, is mostly a tragedy, punctuated by sporadic triumphs exemplified by painter Jose Clemente Orozco and by reformist president Lazaras Cardenas, apostle of the downtrodden. Hard-hitting without being doctrinaire, this vastly illuminating people's history gives voice to the collective trauma of a nation decimated by Spanish colonial rule, betrayed by corrupt politicos and incompetent army chiefs, then manipulated into servile dependence on its neighbor to the north. Ruiz ( The Great Rebellion ), history professor at UC-San Diego, fuses cultural, political and social history. He shows that ``trickle-down'' capitalist economics since the early 1940s has been ``a hoax'' for the great majority of Mexicans. Photos. History Book Club alternate. (Feb.)