Paul Gillingham on Why Mexico Stays Together

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for links, visit conversationwithtiler.com. Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I'm chatting with Paul Gillingham. He has a new book out, Mexico, a 500 year history. It is in my view the single best introduction to the history of Mexico, and will be one of

the best non-fiction books of this year, 2026, Paul. Welcome. Thank you very much for those kind words and it's a privilege to be here. Thanks for the invitation. Now, after independence in 1821, why did not the rest of Mexico fragment the way central America did a few years later, where it splits off from the Mexican Empire, like what determines

“the line, what sticks to go there with Mexico and what does not?”

That was a very good question because it's one of the things that really makes Mexico stand out in that period, those histories, is that it's during independence, the rest of the Americas, you get a series of super-states, and so you get Gran Colombia, which is most of the Andes, and going across what's now Venezuela, you get the United Provences of the Rio Plate, and these are huge, and very difficult to conceive of super-states, and

they fail within a decade, and elsewhere you look at other post-colonial states, think in particular of India, within a couple of years, you fragmented and fail, Mexico doesn't. Mexico actually stands up with the exceptions you put of central America, which is formally part of it, in fact, that leaves with insured order, and so it's one of these questions that we'll encounter in the rea equals the miracle that Mexico exists, and to explain it

as a paradox, to make a try at it, I think that there is a common theme in Mexican history, which runs across most of those five centuries, which is a remarkable degree of hands-off government. It's imposed, Mexico has a lot of mountains, it's very difficult to rule from a central, any central pole, and so savvy governments, or governments with no choice, which are quite

often the same thing, a very hands-off.

“Federalism is built into Mexico's soul, and I think that's one of the reasons, from”

early on, Mexico actually outpunches the rest of the Americas, in terms of sticking together as a territorial unit. Whereas you know, in the early 19th century, there are rebellions in Yucatán, the cast wars, but Yucatán does not split off from Mexico. What keeps that together?

Yucatán has always felt itself to be a different country, effectively, and that runs

through each present. You can see the cultural reasons, obviously, and the Maya, the other great, sophisticated urban culture of the 16th century and before, and so it makes sense that they should feel themselves very different from the rest of what comes in Mexico. And in fact, it comes through in small but revealing ways, and back in the 20th century,

people find themselves being asked whether they want a Yucatán beer or a foreign beer.

“And a foreign beer being anything in Mexico, as I said, Yucatán, why doesn't Yucatán leave?”

I think that it came extremely close, and in fact, there's a moment in the 1840s when Mexico and Texas form an alliance, and Texas is chartering warships out to Yucatán to try and prevent any naval incursions. Why on earth does Yucatán stay? I think it's because of the absence of an alternative capital, because Yucatán is profoundly

racially divided. It's one of the, I think, few places in Mexico, where Yucatán really is a fairly stark racial divide, and you have a plantocracy, some ways like the U.S. south, for the civil war, you've got a relatively small white plantocracy centered in Merida, they have no entrance whatsoever, in leading an independent struggle, and while the Maya achieved an underestimated

more than a couple of years, a really joined up, independence movement, spanning all races, all areas, and the entire peninsula. Now, more recently, Mexico has a reputation for being very violent, but Yucatán is especially peaceful.

“There are years where it's had a lower murder rate, I think, than Finland.”

Why is that part of the country after this chaotic beginning, after independence, recently so peaceful and so safe? Again, a good question, and it is, I think, explains broader patterns of drugs and violence in Mexican history.

The first is that foreigners in Mexico have cut blanche, or were in colonial time, people

of foreigner, foreigners are untouchable, and because much of Yucatán, the Yucatán economy centres on tourism, the Riviera Maya, course of Melacetra, there's an awful lot in these key populated coastal strips of foreigners, killing them as bad business. Stability is better for business anyway, and Yucatán, there's more of an imperative for that, so that's one, and the other is that it is ceased being what it used to be, which

is a major transit and transport route, and so, when I proposed my wife on a beach in Quintana Rú, we could go out at 8am next to Tulum, when Tulum was a small dusty town. We could go out and twice a day, we would see small planes coming up from Central America, and we knew perfectly well as they headed north up through Quintana Rú, that this was a drugs run.

As a transit shipment route, it has been far surpassed, and so that other great reason for violence is absent.

“Why did the central government even create the state of Quintana Rú?”

How did you mention it? Oh, that's an extremely good question, Quintana Rú is very much its own country, and in fact, in the cast wars, which you mentioned, there's a very strong east-west divide on the peninsula, and the east is where the Maya rebels really survive the most. So I think that it's an attempt to sort of administratively corral the more unstable, difficult

to rule parts of the country. Using Yucca Thad, that you'll point, made as a country, it's an attempt to corral them, so, okay, we can send armies in there, we can try and prevent contagion, and the idea you can do that by drawing a line on the map is obviously profoundly optimistic. It's more terrain, settlement, which keeps Quintana Rú really different from the rest

of the peninsula, but it worked, right? Can it be said to work when any sort of political project, can it be said to have worked

“when there are very few people there in the beginning?”

And Quintana Rú is historically really low population, most of the Yucca Thad was concentrated closer towards Merida and that west coast, and Quintana Rú really takes off because of mass tourism, and that's because of state intervention, relatively recently, Quintana Rú was a village until the late 60s or the 70s. Before a perferior deias, why is there so little attention to infrastructure in Mexico?

Because the money's not there. But how does he get the money? Well, what accounts for the change?

What accounts to change is, first of all, the final achievement of independence, and, you

know, formerly in the history books, 1821, the Spanish leave Mexico's independent and new stage starts, and that's not actually true. And just in terms of Spanish leaving, well, they don't. They maintain a garrison on the key fortress in the main port controlling the entrance to Mexico from the Atlantic, the port of Veracruz.

The Spanish stay there till 1829, controlling it. They don't really leave within two years and finally leaving. You have a French invasion, failed one, ground, but still an invasion, still that instability. Then you get, obviously, American invasion, then you get a civil war, then you get, I'm sure we'll go into this in a minute, my point is that it's not till 1867, when the Mexican independence

forces take a European imposed emperor and shoot him, which is not done. He don't shoot emperor in the global history, the Mexicans do, and this is a clear declaration of independence, and it's an end to other empires' pretensions, and it's the beginning

of stabilization led by a brilliantly gifted, and this is a word I would always never use,

but a brilliantly gifted politician, portfolio of the US, who benefits from this being a time of a global boom when the rest of the world, the industrial world, craves Mexican

with the epitome of a successful, what used to be called developing nation. And it's with that that you get in structure. And you have Diaz, you have Guadaz, the other very important 19th century leader, and they're both from the state of Wahaka. Is that coincidence? It's only two data points, or does that tell us something?

That is such a good question, because it is something which really stands out to add data points to that. One stage under Diaz, I'm going to say two thirds of the congressmen

are actually effectively from Wahaka, and while congress is sort of a rubber stamp, never

the less tells you something, and I think this goes back, this is the culmination of a very long-term trend of Wahaka and political savvy and relative independence. Wahaka Ganyos are

“good at politics, and they are very politically engaged. If you want to make huge leaps,”

he's out, well, that goes back to the conquest, the 16th century, where Spanish rules flows around them, or why, because people live in mountains tend to be quite good at war and quite prickly, and Wahaka Ganyos epitomise this. And so outside the main value, Wahaka stays largely independent and very decentralized, and so it's a question of, it's almost like New England, democracy is firstly independent, it's more cities, counties, and every

time Wahaka gets a chance, it sees it to really push for autonomy and political power, and you really see this to wrap up this rather tangential explanation, the direct ancestor comes within dependence, where suddenly times are allowed to declare themselves counties, with their own governments, their own elections, very competitive ones, and Wahaka does it to an extraordinary extent, every village in Wahaka says we are now a county, it's almost like Swiss countons,

it's this extraordinary democratic urge, and that trains people to be good at politics. And you think that helps the count for why to this day Wahaka stayed as so interesting to visit, because there's so much local autonomy? I love that, and I would say, in part, because one of the traditional tourist attractions of Mexico is precisely indigenous culture, and because of this autonomy Wahaka is preserved,

“you know, a multitude, very strong indigenous cultures, and I think yes, that I'd add to that”

that it's comparatively safe, the key consideration, but that's a recent thing tourism in Wahaka goes back a long time, I think it's also because you have this stunning colonial city, and Wahaka city is really beautiful, and we have in the US nothing at all, or Canada, we've got

nothing like that, finally, and I actually believe this, Mexican cuisine is very, very diverse,

people think Mexican cooking, bakos, or yes, but, and Wahaka in cooking is really a superb cuisine. One of the best, I would say, Wahaka and Yukateko, cuisines, hadn't shoulders above the rest of Mexican, and so I don't know how much that draws, well, I do actually, there's quite a lot of sort of culinary tourism, which tends to be rich tourism in Wahaka these days, and so I think that's another draw. It's extraordinary, in fact, how many people have realized that over the last 15 or so

years, and forms these sort of expatriate almost colonies in Wahaka, it's a fantastic place to live.

“Amir, two weeks ago, I was eating Barba Cala in Tlacolula. Have you ever been there?”

I have not, but I'm starting to resent this story already, and you haven't told it, I let it go, do tell. Well, there's a fantastic church in town, I would guess it's, I don't know, 20, 25 minutes outside of the main city, so it's easy to get there, you just take a cab ride. We asked our cab driver, Taxista, you know, where's the best Barba Q in a nearby Pueblo, and that's where he took us, was unbelievable.

First of all, very good strategy, and the best meal I had in Yukateko and by country mile, was about half an hour outside Marida, and it was the same thing, asked a local taxi driver, "Come on, if you want a really good meal, why would you go?" And he said, "Ah, it's a bit of a drive, and you say, "Okay, I can see, um, perverse incentive, not in my question, but when you end up in as a small warehouse, really in the middle of nowhere, stuffed full of Mexican people with the most

incredible deer, you know, I actually think this was a fair reflection. I envy you that meal."

20 minutes out of a Mexican town is such a good recipe for finding the best food. 20 minutes, 30 minutes, I'm not sure why, or just the outskirts. Yeah, I think that's actually, that's actually quite true, and maybe there's a book in this

significance and quality of restaurants 20 minutes outside major towns in Mexico.

“If I could ask you while you're there, what did you think of Montel Bon?”

It's a little boring for me. I've been there twice. I didn't go there a third time.

Are the other ruins I much prefer? And yeah, it's fine. It's funny. I say that to young people, and they go, this isn't this is heresy. But yeah, frankly, given the plethora of archaeological sites, you know, I Montel Bon combines is the most boring, large one, by a country mile. It's extraordinary. So I'm so glad to hear that in doors to them. I hope there aren't too many will hack in your listeners to this particular podcast. You know, there's that small tomb you can see.

What's it called? Is it Sartila? Is this city or the Pueblo? It's again, like 30 minutes outside of Mahaka City, I think. We had some great food there, and just to see that one sapotec tomb,

where you walk down the steps, and you have it all to yourself. To me, it's better than Montel Bon

was, and that's just one thing in a field. That's the way Koba used to be. You could turn and such calco in Morilos, which they've really, and I'm glad by this, they've really expanded in the last 20 years. And the day the tourism potential, and so they should have, because it's stunning. Now, if we look to the early 20th century, it seems there's some number of key leaders from the state of Kauakwila. Is that coincidence? No. There's Mediator,

there's Koranza. Why does that happen? Oh, Kauakwila is one of the states which benefits enormously from this global boom of the turn of the century, which translates into the U.S.

“drawing investments and resources in a sort of unprecedented way. I think that it's taking”

half of British global investment to that time. And resources are desperately needed. The obvious thing in Kauakwila is copper, copper mines, but here on the border in Kauakwila has a geography which stretches everything from arid mining territory through to really, really rich irrigated lands. And so it's wealthy. It's next to U.S. You get a class of big landowners who are very diversified, very cosmopolitan. So, my role was educated in part in Paris, in part in Berkeley,

and they look southwards and think this is a slightly slurotic dictatorship. We can do better. This is a big very general question, but after World War Two, Mexico avoids military rule and they avoids civil war, unlike many parts of the Americas. What's your account of that? Well, my account with that first of all, that's a major paradox, which really lay behind the subject of my doctorate and my last book. How do you account for the fact that Mexico

has revolution, first of all, one of the great revolutions, which lays down radical prescriptions for equality, which are then produced by one of the most unequal economies in the Americas. So, you've got talking revolution, you've got massive enduring inequality. And yet, you have this, as you point out, abnormal peace, going back to 1929, with regular elections, like clockwork,

every six years, every six years, there's a peaceful transfer of power, there is never any,

even imagination of a January the 6th moment there. And to make another comparison, there's after 1929, no assassination, whereas obviously here, JFK, RFK, MLK, there's almost alphabet soup of assassination of leaders, progressive leaders. As you look at this and try and

“make it adder, it's extremely difficult. And I think it's in part, because the inequality misses”

some of the benefits for the rapidly growing urban populations, which range from superb direct cheap subsidized cinema to low housing with two healthcare, Mexican healthcare, given its income band, is very, very good. So, just looking at genie coefficients for either income or wealth, doesn't tell the entire story of what Mexicans get out of the revolution. And the final thing is precisely those elections. Because this is a one-party state, and the

elections are rigged. No question. All the way until the last decade, really, the national elections, are rigged, but the local ones are not. Well, yes, they are actually, but any group of people who feel strong enough, like say, "Well, Hakenios, no, about the local autonomy, about ruling themselves, can make enough of a fuss about it, that through the mechanism of election, backed up by riot,

to popular representation, which, at the time, outpunches the British, because in the British system, candidates just get imposed from the party. The party says, "Local candor X will run for

“election in Surrey," and that's it, democracy's finished. Mexicans don't like that, and I think”

that's something that helps temper. This radical inequality in qualitative terms, this apparent national sort of what the people call the soft dictatorship. And then the final piece, and I'm sorry this answer goes on, but this is just a central paradox, which political

scientists and historians have struggled to understand for decades, and I think we're finally

getting a handle on it. The final piece is the immense war weariness caused by a revolution that kills one in 10 Mexicans, and the education that gives leaders all the way to 50s in the absolute pragmatic imperative, whatever you do, keep the lid on. Whatever needs doing, if it's repression, then the general reconciliation works better. And this extremely complex equation, I think, is what keeps the army out of politics. What keeps relative peace and relative buy-in to this,

unequal, single-party state. There's nothing like it, Mexica really is idiosyncratic in this, and it's extraordinary, and you can see complicated recipe. And right before a world where

“two, the Cardinus regime redistributes a lot of the cultivatable land. How does that fit into your story?”

That fits into my story, and it's always good to say a work in Trinity. So I'm going to say in three

ways, but then reserve the right to say a fourth. And the first is that one of the key reasons the Mexican Revolution is land. Mexico is a strongly rural country with strong traditions of this autonomy, small freeholding or collective land owning in indigenous areas. And the Porfiriatos sees a revolution in this, extraordinary concentration of land. This entails obviously disposition of the peasantry. This is one of the key things that leads people like Emiliano Zapata to rebel.

And so you have this sort of pent-up demand for land, from millions of families. That's one, two, it largely for many fails because they get land, but they get land on the condition that say they continue factory farming. And so everyone's going to grow sugar, everyone's going to grow wheat. Not quite a Soviet colon cords, but you don't have the peasant doesn't have autonomy, which they want, quite often, to plant whatever they want. Right? This is in many ways a failure

from that point of view. But there's always the psychological payoff that they have got land.

And then in more straightforward terms, this is one of the reasons that Mexico's health care system is really not some both level works. It's because every communal farm, a heddle they're called, has a medical office. And so even though, in the sort of apparent terms of giving Mexico's rural population a new level of wealth, autonomy, it doesn't work particularly well. It brings a certain pride. It brings a certain independence. It brings good health care. They're all these less tangible

“benefits. There's nothing like it in the Americas and one of the key reasons, I think, that again,”

the countryside stays largely questioned while it is stripped of resources in the 60 years after Gardenese leaves office. It hasn't the hedosystem held Mexico back, because without that system, many more people would sell their land to outsiders, moved to the cities, just have much higher real wages. For instance, as you see in China, well, you do get massive urbanization, and it's people being pushed out of the countryside. By a deliberate transfer of resources, what do I mean

by that? I mean that food prices are capped, and so the really key one may as its prices kept artificially low. This means that you can have an urban and especially industrializing workforce on the cheap. You can have really low wages, you can have quite low cost, and in Mexico, reasonably high quality industrialization, it all comes at the expense of the countryside. And so does the hedo change that? No, not really. Also, the hedo is used for precisely the sort of

commercial farming, which generates the sort of profits, economies of scale that, you know, a sort of a command economy or China might actually achieve. And it's some instances that's not just run by the government, but it's run by the government as a sort of almost shell company or front

one of the giants in food production, cotton, etc. They are through the Mexican government,

instructing a hedos exactly what to grow. So, in the end, functionally most of the difference and the pressure on the countryside and the attraction of the city means that you're going to get this kind of Chinese style and level of urbanization. Irrespective of the degrading reform, has Mexico worried too much about land and not enough about human capital? No, I didn't think saying. But say you look at Lebanese migrants, right? They don't obsess over accumulating land.

They have high human capital. They've done very, very well under the same regime. You could say that the same about the Lebanese globally, I mean, sure. Well, the great diaspora merchants, you think

“Armenia, you think Lebanon. And so, I think they bring that. I don't think, I mean, you know,”

look at how much land there is in Lebanon. The Bacavali is tiny. You can drive up and down it

in about three hours. If you're feeling quite brave on any given day. And so, I don't think you're absolutely right. Land is not a Lebanese aim in Mexico as a very strongly peasant economy, peasant society until 1960s, really. And what would every peasant, sort of globally, once, before you get rapid economic change, which is what they call subsistence autonomy. What does that mean? I want the guarantee that I can grow enough food to get my family through the next harvest cycle.

And you can see the logic to that. That's actually a more conservative and stable and economic structure than relying on commercial food purchase when your own income is low

and unstable. What I'm trying to say is it makes very good sense. Does the cargo system,

“which is common in Mexican prevalence? Does it make any sense? Is it sustainable?”

Yeah, I think it is talking about human capital. I think that the cargo system actually through its distribution of social capital brings a lot of talented people to actually make the strange swap. I mean, the cargo system whereby you and an indigenous zone assume political office with absolutely zero payoff and at quite considerable cost in terms of cash and time, it makes sense because it brings the sort of brightest and best into office over and over again.

This is when it works and this is a very broad generalization. The only real downside is a gerontocracy and when you look around our political system, it's quite clear that gerontocracy is limited to societies which work the cargo system. But say I'm a leader, a commissario. I have to pay for part of the fireworks, part of the beer. Isn't my incentive as a talented person

“to minimize local state capacity rather than really having everything developed?”

That's a good question. I would say no actually and that generally cargo holders work as intermediaries with the state in the 20th century and so by investing in fireworks, buying a share in a bull for a fiesta and buying some bull care or whatever your local hooches and not just maintains with stability but doing it in part by of bread and circuses gives a level of control and local nuts and bolts of knowledge which the central government then uses as part of this

basic quest for stability and with stability going all the way back to Porferiato comes through development and I think that this is a fast generalization the cargo system has great flows but the reason it enjoys it also has great strengths. But a lot of these villages they seem quite dysfunctional. It seems not uncommon for say half of the grown man to be alcoholics, right? There's a major problem with imbalance, the men leave, the women have to stay, they're abandoned or they can't

marry or there's no one to support the kid. Wouldn't the central government do better actually just trying to minimize involvement in the villages? Sorry, I don't understand the last part of that question. When you say minimizing involvement do you mean just stepping back and letting villages get on with whatever that sort of collective goals are? I don't quite understand. Well the village itself can make it hard to migrate because you cannot in isolated fashion

sell your land to an outsider, right? Someone's willing to bid for it, put the whole village in essence as a veto on whether you can sell your land. Wages are much higher outside the village, alcoholism is lower outside the villages typically, so should the villages be subsidized or in essence should moving to the cities be subsidized in terms of the net effect of policy?

long time and done so and I think that land is no longer the question. Most people in villages this depends very much where you go but the reason half the men aren't there is precisely because they have migrated to work, whether it be migrating to cities, whether it be migrating to the north and remittances are a key source. They are the lifeline for many villages and that's the

way it's been familiar centuries and you get a certain amount of small scale cultivation as always

of May's tomato squash, chillies, etc, your full sort of nutrient package. That's a small portion of what people are actually doing in villages and that's increasingly un-economic on a sort of market local level and this is why you get this out migration that you talk about, it's not just male, it's also women ever since they set up Macchil Adoras, there's been huge outflow the more entrepreneurial to these factories on the border tax-free zones to assemble U.S. components. Alcoholism,

what remains the really economic stress with this huge out migration of young people, express itself as it does in a lot of people with drinking, with what's interesting there is not with drugs. Alcohol is this very strong constant, I mean you're speaking as a Brit, speaking about other people's alcohol consumption, it's slightly hypocritical and I'm not going to really go there but it is interesting that historically, well, Mexico is a hard drinking society

and we're going back to Colony now. I say I look at India, country with a lot of problems. India typically grows between four to eight percent a year depending which numbers you believe.

“Mexico is lucky to grow at two percent a year. What accounts for the difference?”

Like, where is Mexico failing? Oh, I think Mexicans would see that as extraordinary success because Mexicans had the greatest demographic transition in history, you know the way you get population growth and you know any species is basically an S-shaped curve in the right sort of right environment and Mexico had this exceptionally steep curve and it's populationally 1910 and 2000

increases 700 percent and that is steeper than anywhere in the world, that speed. What's that

mean it means that you come to the 70s and just as population control starts to be a global concern Mexico has this very joined up state, it's it's impoverished but it's pretty joined up and takes a look at what they see as being a problem which is population growth, putting too much strain on state infrastructure social services and okay so we need to control that ASAP and they put together this non-coressive campaign unlike India, India identifies the same problem. I'm talking about

per capita income growth though, so India gets a lot of resources for you. Oh no, I saw no, population growth. No, okay maybe we can go back to that because that also fascinates me,

“per capita income growth. Again, I think that's an extremely good question. I think the Mexico”

has a overall impressive medium-term GDP growth and so at the end of the sort of 60s it's the 27th largest economy in the globe right now it's the 13th. The question becomes really income distribution. So I think that if you look at it not in question of a few years or maybe a decade but over longer term a Mexican economy growth has been impressive. This isn't all down to hard work or smart policy. It's down to the great advantage of being next door to the world's largest market.

No, but what it does mean is that you have maybe not the sort of extremely accelerated economic growth of right now in India but post an after you actually do get quite a lot of quite fast sort of take off almost speed of growth. So maybe it's just that Mexico has actually gone a stage beyond

“India India is if you want to plan catch up. That's what you think on my feet. What do you think?”

I think human capital is by far the biggest problem and then the slow rate at which small informal businesses are willing to enter the more heavily regulated sector is a real problem. Mexico has a lot of human capital. One of the reasons that this population control works

is because you get far more people going through those critical first three years of primary school.

I do the everyone goes through high school, not but that's just not a global reality. And the key metric is how many people you're getting through three years of school which teach you to read, write and do rudimentary maths. And Mexico's record on that is far better than most

first three years than precisely actually in India, Kenya and Egypt. We're looking now at this

“phase of take off. I'm talking about of the 70s and 80s. And so I think the human capital there's”

really there. A lot of Latin America has above average years of schooling for their income level, but pretty low test scores, pretty low performance at the top. Just for instance that English even getting buy and conversation in Mexico seems to be only about 7%. That to me is remarkably low. It's especially given how many of them migrate or which to my great. And I think education has failed Mexico. Even though people yeah they show up at the building,

the teachers often aren't good sometimes in the prebleau they're not even there. I think that Mexicans would absolutely agree with you. And I would beg to

do for a part differ. The first thing I'd say is that since forever a key skill in migrating has

precisely been English acquisition. And again this is kind of global. No I mean you get this everywhere there's this realization and migration selects the most entrepreneurial, the most dynamic generally. And so these this sector goes to the US either preps beforehand or else learns very quickly here. It's one of the reasons that they're economically so successful

“back in Mexico. 7% speaking English do you think by global comparative that's low?”

For a neighbor it's very very low. And what percent of the Mexican population has lived in the US at some point. It's got to be at least 10% probably higher. So that to me is stunningly low. I'd say that probably is part due to the urban rural divide and Mexico's population is now

overwhelming the urban. It tips in 1960 for the first time there's more city dwellers than country dwellers.

There is a chasm between education in the countryside and education in the city. So I would be interested in those numbers if you disaggregated them down to towns of I would say 4,000 plus. And saw how that broke down because my bet would be that you would have far higher globally comparative or even beyond rates in the cities which as you say it wouldn't make sense. You think we'll hold in a minute you've got a country which invests by comparatives relatively well in education.

You're a neighbor to the US. Where's you know where's the English? Good questions. I would disaggregate the data before I'm taking home the idea that there is a massive failure in that's the specific sector of the education system. To return to population why is the Mexican

“total fertility rate? Now below that of the United States, much poorer country right?”

One thinks of Latin America as having high fertility but it doesn't anymore. What's happened there? This again is the product relief two things which we've already been covering and one is this really joined up noncoessive population control of the 70s and 80s which was a global model. How Mexico hosted the global conference on this? I think twice or three times it got a price from the UN and how could it do this compared the rest of Latin America? Two things. First of all,

by keeping Catholicism out of political life, more than almost anywhere else and so whereas you have priests invading against the evils of contraception again across most other Latin American societies, the revolution and the 19th century before it met the Mexico has a unique degree of separation of church in the state. As the church just doesn't say anything as the government goes about aggressively pushing the pill condoms etc. Now this stage the obvious question was okay we're

hold on so the church doesn't say anything but on a micro level inside families, conservative people used to until the 70s the total fertility rate was nearly 7 for a family and traditionally having children especially male children is a symbol of success and you know economically it used to be useful to have the spare hands on. So what changes are micro level goes back to education? Women who are educated have far more autonomy to say yes to contraception

and you see this really clearly in rates of uptake of the pill which in the 60s goes through the roof as soon as it's available and we've got surveys from hospital to people over there do you take the pill yes or no yes you do and even in really conserved societies there's a village which has been very studied it's wonderful called San Jose de Guerracia in the Highlands of Halisco and there we've got this really good quality sort of a micro study and we just say yes actually we

to the men you're just going to have to like that and why is that that globally correlates to primary education and women's primary education how many women for all the floors are getting through the doors

for those first three years by the end of the 60s in 73 percent again go global to what was then

a band of middle income countries and there's nothing like it. Now most historians of Mexico they're not British and you are where are you from and Britain and how do you think that's shaped how

“you read Mexican history? I think there's a small group of well I know there's a small group of”

British historians and you know their rather rather good of what they do my own story is actually not holy British because I grew up in Ireland in the southwest in a county called Cork and I was actually sinking I was actually accent you have by the way so I was confused when you said no

it's strange but this fellow with an Irish accent oh yeah you've got you've got a good air it's

sort of a hybrid growing up in Cork I was supposed to give a two last month that the university there and I was thinking you know what can I say to link the two up and trees says what I've been talking about this fierce local independence local pride identity this is so Cork I mean Cork sees itself and so I thought so oh no totally and land as you say and hardship Cork is one of the centers of the great hunger the great famine of the 19th century so there's that but then I was

educated and Britain and I was lucky enough to come across these smartest historian I had ever met a historian of the revolution called Alan Knight and I was deciding what I want to do

“with my sort of intellectual life I met this person and thought okay that's what I'd like to do”

and thanks to the Oxford system I could spend one semester entire just working with him just on the Mexican revolution and that changed everything and then there's a flip-on so which is Mexico's weather is a lot better than England now when it comes to crime and violence why is the state of Guerrero traditionally so tough so violent so difficult is it just mountains is it something else low state capacity ethnic groups that are there get it over is it a place which is very dear to me I'm actually

from my doctorate really tried to dive deep into two states and Guerrero was one of them so I went to villages and it's of that level working various places and in part yes it's geographic determinism it's mountains but then you say what hold on let's hear them that way runs all the way up into the rockies can you tell us a bit more and I think it's because of a long tradition of the dry for political independence exacerbated in its intensity by a large Afro-MAXed population on the coast who distinctly

conscious that they have been discriminated against who are good at violence I think it's because Guerrero is next door it's relatively close to Mexico City and so it's threatening to Mexico City in the way say Sonora or Yucatan isn't so much and so when some fairly oppressive conditions you can imagine landmen, opposition, political, thugry etc combined in a state with people who really

are very keen on independence and are relatively close to city the answer is this sort of reinforcing

“cycle of repression, opposition, repression and that's what you've seen in Guerrero going back”

really on and off across two centuries of Mexican independence but specifically intensified from the Podfiriata onwards and what's forgotten sometimes really interesting is that those three families which really run their Guerrero coast and one of them is actually America it's usually successful major landowners and so you think of Guerrero as being you know slightly remote etc it's also got the major Podfac Polco it's extremely dynamic it's multi-ethnic there's a lot of

competition and there's a long history of again this desire to be left alone what's your favorite part of Guerrero ah if you drive north what's called the Costa Grande so you go to Acopolco you turn right and you go up what's called the Costa Grande and you get the tourist times, you walk naked, a stopper and after about four hours of driving you get to a place called Saladita and which is

I spent a lot of very very happy time there when I was a kid so that's my favorite part did you spend any time in the Rio Basso spillages? No I didn't there was a couple of reasons and one of the key ones was that region was perceived as being extremely dangerous while I was there and so there were horror stories like the Egyptian console took a wrong turn instead of going along the coast went up into that area and was sort of a killed and dismembered completely

breaking the rule that foreigners are untouchable and so no I didn't and I wouldn't put it at

“the top of parts of Guerrero I would like to explore it length either why have you been there?”

Yeah I've spent a lot of time there they're very beautiful I used to go there to buy amatees and pottery the road in can be tricky but they're very safe once you get there and in which period are we talking about with that? I was mostly there in the 90s and early 2000s which was safer than today you and me both but then they were completely safe no problems whatsoever. I think one of that was the roadway that was one of the roads like the coast I could and where you were told okay

between a basically dawn and dusk it's not too bad as it sort of rolled the dice but from dusk

to dawn that that would be foolish to travel. Like of a guardrail would worry me as much as anything but for no idle speaking villages it's the best place to go in Mexico I think that I know of. There and I would say the northern Sierra of Puebla is also strong concentrations but it was

“that just for the off the beaten track fascination or was there a specific reason which took you there?”

I ended up writing a book about it but mostly for art collecting and you know one comes to have friends in these places as I'm sure you have too and you want to visit them and they regard you as a kind of family or a computer, whatever you'd call it. Well I'm glad I wasn't more rude about it than I was. Well it's a tough place. Are you living standard once you arrive as extremely low? Yeah the place I spent longest in is a village in the north called it's

got the Opun, about hour and a half drive at least back then out of them. Tasco where a lot of people go and sort of silver city. Each got the Opun was about 1500 people then really very poor and one cafe on the main square and virtual very very little else. I ended up like a like a feeble and

“foreigner going with sort of a little camping stove and many many cans of Campbell soup and tuna fish”

and saltings. Yeah that's those parts of the countryside then you had endemic threats to your stomach. Now 30 years ago I would not have thought did not think that Mr. Wakand would end up so violent and yet it has. What's the story in that state? First of all, me neither. A story in that state is a combination of production and transplant and for transplant you've got the post of Lazaro Cardenas which is a huge port. There is a total white elephant. It was bought in the sub built

in the 70s as a way of through honoring the great revolutionary leader Cardenas. It was not connected

ever to anything really. So you've got this fantastic infrastructure from both coastal but also trans specific trade. So it's a very good place to begin precursors and fentanyl more recently. Precoses for meth. So that's part of the trans shipment. It's also that whole Pacific coast obviously is a major trans shipment zone. There's also the production and methamphetamine is large recently but in the highlands also heroin and it's a poppy and marijuana. You've got the avocado industry

huge prize for extortion which is increasingly many drug trading organizations, principle or major part of their portfolio and avocado farmers and lime farmers are great to extort. And then

finally we come back to my favorite themes, mountains. It is quite easy to hide things like meth labs

and it's quite easy to kill soldiers who come looking for you. Mitchell Canisrave made for Gorilla Warfare. This combination of a place where you can produce a lot of excellent illicit goods. You can trans ship them and you can kill state actors who come after you and make Mitchell Canisrave this recent Revivalence. The final pieces, overall these resources, it's been a front line over

hard that single organization dominance which makes places safe. Now when your model of how Mexico is evolving as you know Monterey is quite a wealthy part of Mexico and it's growing 20 years from now. Well that just be safe and normal or is it still going to be in this in between

“state where you have to worry what road you're on or you took close to the border or will it just”

are fine because of the wealth? Well already Monterey is one of the places where I would feel really quite safe. Oh in town but out of town you have to ask questions.

No, but yeah, but yeah and never leon the state. It's also not sort of

it's not front line these things as usual as imply shift rapidly and so until quite recently Colima Pacific Coastal State was really quite tranquil it's now the most violent state in Mexico until two years ago Cinaloa because it was controlled by a single drug trading organization the Cinaloa cartel was also counterintuitively really quite safe. It's not anymore because

“that's in Tennessee and war. Monterey I think it's very bad business to have a war over drugs”

in somewhere which doesn't grow them somewhere which isn't important to transmit and somewhere

where there are such fantastic possibilities of an extortion, middle and small income businesses

and so I would already be quite happy round the way of leon and I would predict because of those structural factors nothing to grow little trying to ship that it will and the wealth you point out it will continue continue thus and in 20 years I would hope with an even greater sense of security in the countryside around it. Now the recent judicial reforms which spilled over into the more recent administration a lot of outsiders said well that's taking away the independence

of the Mexican judiciary do you agree or how bad is it or does it not matter much or what's

“your sense? I think it matters greatly I was found at strange the idea of electing any sort of judicial”

official and so when I'm moved to the US I thought well I'll don't you you do what the idea

of electing judges is a really poor idea I think in Mexico because of the interest of local drug trading organizations in having sympathetic judges and it's a lot lower cost to get them elected than to threaten them judges of people who it's generally a bad idea to kill state doesn't like it happens really regularly but still quite a high risk strategy as opposed to just having them in your pocket and while electoral turnout across Mexico is admirably high and remarkable judicial

elections have just been the glaring exception to that I think turnout was 13% and I think that in itself is a condemnation of the whole project and so while recognizing flaws in longstanding flaws in the Mexican judicial system this is I think a disastrous reform why they do it then they did it I think because of a desire to get the current dominant party Morena really further dug into regional power by having sympathetic judiciary I think the Morena's local and regional activists

were very keen on it I think it was philosophical populism as well from the Amlog government and I think it was absolutely it's one of the most unfortunate things I've seen come out of Mexican politics in the last decade for our last segment just some rapid fire questions about Mexico what's your favorite Mexican movie I'm going to say winter light but you're a view may differ anything with Maria Felix in it name one donia barbara soup pub I'd also say the more recently it too Malatambian

that's a great film it's it's difficult to stop laughing at and three burials of Melchiades abroad I like very much I think that's the black dark humor there is profoundly Mexican I think that's one of the reasons why that the British can really appreciate Mexico is we've got a similarly dark sense of humour now Howard Stern was famously rude about Mexican music what in it do you like best I like the fact that they do superb girly pop it that's a terrible I'm right but they have really

thinking specifically of Julio Thabinegas and Natalia Laforgad the latter and this is in my book I'm rotate a song back in the year 2000 which is hilarious reflection of her sister's pregnancy

the states the world and called the first lady of Mexico a racist worm this is music which I you know

“it's so it's thought-provoking and tunful and so I like that I think it's a glad it's best”

it's a very clever music and at what for me is it's worst with apologizes to everybody who likes animals dearers they're not there nor than your music I cannot stand recorded but if you've ever heard it live in a night spot suddenly the polkers the wheezing the the songs which sort of a max conversion of gangs to write me think actually yeah this is this is quite good those and ends another couple of years ago and on this bar with a sort of a mast guy with a m16 on the door

and three norteno bands inside and it was fabulous so you know even my least favorite has has

some legs to it it can be very good fun and very evocative what's the great classic Mexican novel ah has to be la muerte de art de mil cruz de death de art de mil cruz Pedro Paromo for me are even savage detectives I know balonios from Chile but to me it's a Mexican novel totally and I'm glad you say that because savage detectives is very much as sort of that inside is novel of Mexico I mean the the mockery of the unam and specifically it's faculty

and it's faculty of law and philosophy it's just so spot on and yet impart because it is so close to what I study to the mystery of the origins of the one party state and the pre and

“in part also I think it's one of the first Mexican novels I read and things you read or things”

you listen to between the ages of 14 and 18 they mark you and stay with you fairly or aren't fairly and why are tamiocruz as your pick are tamiocruz because of the real human complexity of it

so it's the story of a young revolutionary who manages through violence, luck, business,

smart, extortion to move from being very from very poor beginnings to being a major Mexican and mogul the the story skips between his life ends with decadent old age and he's made it but in the classic sort of the holiness of wealth done and he's made it but in human times he's totally emptied and then the beginning the story he got there and I find it so moving so so tragic and so deeply evocative of the Mexico I read about the Mexico I study I say if I'd

read it ten years later who knows and if I'd read it last year I might actually be ranking it below and the recent novels of Alvaro and Riga who two novels really stick out one is like a modern where tamiocruz it's called decency, decencia which anybody who sort of likes Mexican humor likes Mexico City will just get and the other is your empires have been dreams in English which is a retelling of the conquest as this glorified heist by a bunch of fortunate thugs which I

think most historians would agree with and has some twists in it which are stunning and Alvaro of course has the advantage of he actually reads quite a lot of history so when he writes history the details are there and you find yourself noting oh yeah yeah can believe that as recline is a

“big fan of the conquest book I think well it did very well and and I can see why it was clever”

complex it was provocative and it had a killer twist to it was not to like let's say an educated person comes to you they live in the United States and they have two weeks to spend and they want to learn Mexico but put aside Mexico City and put aside the ruins they want to learn Mexico Mexico proper where do you send them what's the ideal Mexico trip okay I think I deal in terms of educational not necessarily but it should be fun and interesting too right okay so I would send them across

the board in California in Tejwana I would then tell them to fly to I think probably Zacatecas because this sort of brox blend of Mexico it's not captured anywhere with the same intensity I mean this was the center of the sort of financial they're the wealth producing world it had the biggest mind the world and the colony that translated into this absolutely just it's beyond words architect it's stunning you get buildings there's a sky style called the Churrigra Square every inch

is carved with extraordinary detail so I think Tejwana Zacatecas and from Zacatecas I'd go to

notable for two things apart from the fact that it's a great week long party and one is you get some of the best bullfights in Mexico and two is this is one of the very few times when gambling is legal temporarily there when you combine that again it's a pretty colonial town and I'd make sure and go and see that symphony orchestra which is superb Argentine conductor from I was Calientes

“I think I'd take a plane and go to I'm trying to maths now three days in each place so in nine days”

two more cities I would go to Calapa in Veracruz precisely because it's particularly uninterested for its quality as a city and there's surroundings a beautiful sort of temperate climate and then the final one is really cramming things in I'd hoped I'd have a private jet on their soil so driver I would go to San Cristobadla Casas the colonial capital of Jappas great trip

last two questions first what's the best Mexican restaurant in her near Chicago in onir Chicago

I'm not sure for the simple reason my family's actually based in New York and so when I go out for dinner it's usually a new you're in your New York then so oh now that's great because I just found this island where no it's downtown it's called the Santa local and it's the Takaria which is exceptional and in case you find that to be inverse snobbery I would say the underneath the Takaria there's a hidden quite smart restaurant almost a sort of speakeasy restaurant both

than my superb and I intend spending a lot of time in basism so that's my answer for New York

“get to Santa local and have there two of that you have to try two one is their mushroom tackle”

which is a revelation and the other is their carnitas for the last question just to plug your book again in Mexico the 500 year history everyone should buy and read it finally what will you do next I'm writing a book which is a prehistory of money laundering and it's based on a document I found in the British foreign office which is a query from a director of the great bullion dealers Johnson Matthew and it says I've just been in touch with a person on a

steamship lying off in the channel islands you have five million pounds worth of illicit

government Mexican government silver on board I'd like to buy it pennies on the pound what would your advice be and the first bit of advice is check that the silver actually exists and don't tell the Mexican government I would like to know what happened next at that end

“because I think I know at the Mexican end where it came from and how it got onto the ship in”

New York Harbor so I'm hoping to reconstruct using Mexican American there's FBI involvement

and British archives as much as I can the path of this silver in this decade the first great decade

of money laundering which is in 1920s. Paul Gillingham thank you very much Tyler it's been a pleasure thank you for the invitation. Thanks for listening to conversations with Tyler you can subscribe to the show on apple podcasts Spotify or your favorite podcast app if you like this podcast please consider giving us a rating and leaving a review this helps other listeners find the show on twitter i'm at Tyler Cowan and the show is at Cowan Convo's until next time

please keep listening and learning