It is a tribute to the sincerity and strength of the faith of the Mexican people, that Catholicism, is still the dominant religion in this land south of the Rio Grande. Time after time, the Catholic Ch... read more

Mythology and Legends of the Nahua People: Essays on Ancient Mexico Part 1: "The Creation of the Universe" Part 2:"Legend of the Fifth Sun" Part 3: "Creation of the Fifth Sun at Teotihuacan"... read more

In the darkest days of the Battle of Britain, Winston Churchill said of the RAF that "never has so much been owed by so many to so few." To paraphrase the great statesman, it could be said of the Juan ... read more

Few movements have ever started out less auspiciously than Francisco Madero's rebellion against Porfirio Diaz, the man who had held Mexico in an iron grip for 35 years. The maderis... read more

As the future unfolds, history is tucked away into the past. We see this past because our ancestors recorded the events of their lives by writing them down in some form or another, be it with chisel, quill or pen. What we know about history, or rather what we think we know is dependent on who wrote those histories and what they chose to include. Going further and further back in time there is less and less information, until one reaches a period of time before the written word, approximately 5000 years ago.

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Mention vanilla, and people are apt to think of the ice-cream flavor they select when confronted with a mind-boggling choice involving everything from chirimoya to cheesecake: "just plain vanilla." Wha... read more

Survivors. The very word has connotations of persecution, repression, hardship and escape. It also describes people with courage, stamina, the ability to adapt and almost always a moral strength and c... read more

I was recently invited to write the prologue for a book on Mazatlán history, with the condition that I relate Mazatlán to Europe. As a Mazatleco who has been living in Switzerland since 1982, ... read more

A great ideological struggle is never a day at the beach. Whether its matrix is race, nationality or economic inequality, the fight of the oppressed against the oppressor is always a somber affair. Nob... read more

Probably the individual in history who most resembled Agustin de Iturbide was Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the French statesman who managed to hold high positions in the pre-revolutionary a... read more

The vast majority of the approximately 50,000 Mexican citizens who practice Judaism via organized congregations are descendents of people who, from 1881 to 1939, found life-saving refuge in this countr... read more

José Guadalupe Posada is in the great tradition of cartoonists who double as political and social commentators. That tradition includes Honoré Daumier, whose merciless portraits of bourgeois society ... read more

The survival of Judaism in Mexico is a tale of tenacity and tolerance. The story begins in Spain with the "Conversos", Jews who had converted to Christianity, always under duress. It starts in 600 AD,... read more

Mexican chocolate refers to either the round, flat disks of cinnamon-scented chocolate found throughout the land, or the foamy drink made from them. This uniquely flavored sweet is popular in many othe... read more

Rebels, we know, can range from wild-eyed anarchists to sober and judicious opponents of an established order who make a considered decision that the system under which they live is no longer viable. ... read more

History of Oaxaca Part 3 - Modern Era By Maria Diaz Her Bio Her email: maria@oaxacalive.com Part 1 Pre-Hispanic Era - Part 2 Colonial Era Let us continue our... read more

Of the leaders of the Mexican independence movement, the one who most resembled Nicolás Bravo was Ignacio de Allende. In my coverage on Allende, I described him as a "law-and-order" rebel, one who bel... read more

hi! does anyone know how Mexico got its name and when the people as a whole were first called Mexicans? does it have something to do with the Aztecs whom I think were also called the Mexias or Mexicas or something along those lines?

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Francisco Madero was a man who was too good for his own good. Naive, trusting, merciful toward those who deserved no mercy, he was in the end betrayed and murdered by those in whom he had mistakenly pl... read more

History of Oaxaca Part 2 - Colonial Era By Maria Diaz Her Bio Her email: maria@oaxacalive.com Part 1 Pre-hispanic Era Welcome to the continuation of an overview o... read more

Adolfo López Mateos (1909–1970) and Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1911–1970) In 1958, the year Adolfo López Mateos became president of Mexico, the world was relatively tranquil. The Korean War was over ... read more

When asked by the New York Times magazine to write about the most important contribution of the past millennium, Italian author Umberto Eco chose the humble bean. In How the Bean Saved Western Civiliza... read more

From Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz to Gerard Manley Hopkins, the Catholic cleric who is also a poet is an unending subject of interest. Given the poet's traditional role as a free spirit and the Church's ... read more

Bruce Berger is an excellent guide to the Baja. He’s been going there since the mid '60s, having driven the length of the peninsula at least three times when that meant travelling more than 1,000 kilometers of single lane dirt road. One could drive for a day and meet only one other car. And you would never dream of leaving without taking plenty of food, water and gasoline plus whatever extras and spare parts you might need to fix auto problems along the way. read more

Revolution is the ultimate test for survival of the fittest. In times of stormy social change, intense competition is generated among leaders of forces seeking that change and, inevitably, one man emer... read more