Description
Book SynopsisBringing together Mexican, Soviet, and North American (as well as British) perspectives, this book shows how the convergence of each country's domestic and foreign policies precluded them from a harmonious triangular relationship. It contributes to an understanding of the international dimension of the Mexican revolution.
Trade Review“
The Impossible Triange succeeds on many levels, but perhaps none more than in its innovative trilateral approach. The Mexico that emerges from Spenser’s narrative is both object—of the unequal struggle for influence between the United States and the Soviet Union—and subject, capable of dealing with these two ‘courtiers’ on its own terms. This engagingly-told story reminds us of the radical contingencies thrown up by the Bolshevik Revolution and how that revolution permanently altered the conduct of international relations.”—Lewis Siegelbaum, Michigan State University
“
The Impossible Triangle documents a comedy of errors that tells us how, in
similar unforeseen situations, before pursuing reality, every diplomacy pursues its own phantoms.”—Adolfo Gilly, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
Table of ContentsForeword / Friedrich Katz ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Part One- The Encounter of Two Revolutions, 1917-1924
1 The United States in Search of Its Mexican Policy 9
2 Mexico in Soviet Calculations 32
3 Soviet Russia in Mexican Politics 51
Part Two- The Revolutions Arrive at Cross-Purposes, 1924-1927
4 The United States Challenges Mexico 75
5 The Soviets Misunderstand Their Meixcan Friend 95
6 Mexico at the Crossroads 113
Part Three- The Revolutions Collide, 1928-1930
7 The United States as Good Neighbor 133
8 The Ideological Excesses of the Comintern 152
9 The Break in relations between Mexico and the USSR 170
Final Reflections 191
Notes 195
Bibliography 231
Index 251
