Porfirio Diaz, President of Mexico (1876-1880 and 1884-1911) dominated his country during a crucial phase of its development into a modern nation. The political rule of Porfirio Diaz has mostly been viewed from the perspective of the Mexican Revolution which finally toppled him from power - holding that he was the cause of, and deserved, his own downfall. But Diaz has recently come to be seen in a rather different and less damning light. Nineteenth-century Latin American history shows the problem of promoting wider political participation and economic development whilst maintaining order and...

Between 1889 and 1919, Weetman Pearson became one of the world's most important engineering contractors, a pioneer in the international oil industry, and one of Britain's wealthiest men. At the center of his global business empire were his interests in Mexico. While Pearson's extraordinary success in Mexico took place within the context of unprecedented levels of British trade with and investment in Latin America, Garner argues that Pearson should be understood less as an agent of British imperialism than as an agent of Porfirian state building and modernization. Pearson was able to secure...