How did modern Mexico become a nation of multicultural diversity and rich indigenous traditions? What key roles do Mexico's non-Western, pre-Columbian indigenous heritage and subsequent development as a major center in the Spanish colonial empire play the country's identity today? How is Mexico today both Western and non-Western, part Native American and part European, simultaneously traditional and modern?

Modern Mexico is a thematic encyclopedia that broadly covers the nation's history, both ancient and modern; its government, politics, and economics; as well as its...