‘Mexico: A 500-Year History’ by Paul Gillingham

“ Mexico and Mexicans have had just about enough of being analyzed,” said in The Washington Post , and historian Paul Gillingham fully understands that. His “breathtaking” new book “reveals Mexican history in all its kaleidoscopic complexity,” and though his account does nothing to downplay the upheavals the nation has endured, it centers the successes rather than the struggles of the land’s people while emphasizing their remarkable diversity. Fittingly, his account starts not with conquistador Hernán Cortés toppling the Aztec empire in 1521 but with a poor Spaniard, Gonzalo Guerrero, who survived a shipwreck several years earlier, chose to live among the Maya as a Maya, and fathered three children who can fairly be labeled the first M

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