Mexicans in the Making of America

Mexicans in the Making of America. By Neil Foley. (Cambridge, Mass., and London: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014. Pp. [xiv], 344. $29.95, ISBN 978-0-674-04848-5.)

Neil Foley has produced a sweeping account of Mexican American history with the publication of Mexicans in the Making of America. Using a broad lens, he emphasizes the long legacy of people of Mexican descent in the United States and analyzes the many contributions that the Mexican American community has made to the nation. He argues that Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants are "central to the story of the making of the United States" (p. 12). Foley examines the intersection of Mexican American and diplomatic history by providing information on the relations between the United States and Mexico, with a particular emphasis on how Mexico responded to the treatment of people of Mexican descent in the United States....