This timely book appears as US President Donald Trump announces a new trade war against Mexico and more cross-border tension.
In Mexico in Transformation, David Raby argues that since 2018 Mexico has undergone a process of change which no-one anticipated and which is nothing short of revolutionary.
The 2018 victory of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, usually known by his initials AMLO, and his Morena movement began a multi-dimensional programme of social change, referred to as the Fourth Transformation. This has been cemented by the subsequent victory of Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico's first female president.
The Fourth Transformation includes the fight against corruption, including the war on tax evasion. Mexico's restoration of energy sovereignty is also crucial move, gaining national control of oil, gas, electric power and lithium has fundamentally transformed the country's prospects
Progressive welfare programmes such as public universal pensions, restoration of free public education, free universal healthcare and many others increase the economic scope of the public sphere on a scale which has few if any parallels in the "Western world". Participatory democracy is also advancing as is the constitutional recognition of Indigenous and Afro-Mexican rights.
The administration of President Donald Trump in the US poses a threat to its southern neighbour but Mexico's unflinching stand of dignity and independence has earned praise from across Latin America and the world, and its strong economic and political bargaining position may enable Mexico to resist US hostility successfully.
