Fire And Blood

Today, after months of reading it, I finished Fire & Blood: A History of Mexico by T.R. Fehrenbach.It is a history of Mexico from prehistoric times to the year 2000 (and the end of the 70+ years of PRI political dominance.) It is an absolutely fascinating read, full of opinions and insights. And while I do not agree with everything Fehrenbach says, I think it is worth the trip to see Mexico through his eyes.I do live in Mexico and think it imperative to know something of the history and culture that one lives in, but I also feel that as neighbors (with a great many expats on both sides of the Rio Bravo / Rio Grande) we should know more about our neighbor(s) then we collectively do.Fehrenbach is one hell of a great writer and I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in knowing more about the world.

I love Mexico and the Mexican people. I want to know more about this wonderful country. This is a good comprehensive history of Mexico for generalist beginners like me. There are lots of opinions and generalizations about Mexico offered by this San Antonio author writing about 50 years ago. The book was revised in the 1990s, apparently to add discussions of then more recent presidencies of the Mexican Republic of the 1980s and 1990s. Even so, this material is quite dated. The author is far better known for his interest in Texas than his interest in Mexico. Readers with even a bit of literary maturity will immediately recognize the author’s various comments are often due to be taken with a (big) grain of salt. There are no notes but this is a popular history not a scholarly history. I found the discussion of the revolution following the end of the Porfiriato to be very interesting. I learned many things I didn’t know, for example, the battle of Puebla, celebrated as Cinco de Mayo, was fought as the French were establishing supremacy in Mexico not at as they were finally being driven out. This book is just fine if you seek a general overview and read enough history to understand how to take into account biases that are brought to the writing of history. These can sometimes be acute here but I never thought they were motivated by animus. This is a good book, fun to read. I enjoyed it and now, using it as a foundation, I can move on to more scholarly works..

This book served as an excellent introduction to the history of Mexico for me. Fehrenbach writes with great skill and manages to craft a gripping and informative saga of the many varied and fascinating characters and episodes that have taken place over the long and often tragic history of our southern neighbor.For those who've been upset by "racial overtones" and "politically incorrect tropes" they found in the text, I would encourage you to continue reading works published before 2000! Let us not discount either history nor the presentation of history due to our contemporary sensitivities; we would all be intellectually poorer for that. Yes, this book was originally published in the 1970s, but I found Fehrenbach's a fair and compassionate record of a complex human story, which makes for a winning read in any decade.I look forward to using this work as a springboard to learn even more about Mexican history. Those reviewers unimpressed by Fehrenbach's "opinions and generalizations" would do well to continue your own study of Mexico. You may find that all historians will make such generalizations. How wonderful it is to live in a country and time where we can access as many histories as we like, eventually forming our *own* opinions and contributing our voice to the delightful and diverse conversation that is history.Thank you Mr. Fehrenbach, and happy reading to all.

A few years ago I picked up and read a book on Mexican history while vacationing there. I was fascinated by the tragic but fascinating story with such colorful characters and by the times when hope for positive change seemed so close only to be lost at the last minute. When I looked for additional books on Mexican history I saw this one and the good reviews and decided to try it. I'm glad I did as the author really fleshes out the history by providing detailed and clear portraits of the people and events involved as well as rational for why things happened the way they did. Now, how accurate he is I can't say and some reviewers have commented about the lack of footnotes but my gut says he's pretty darn close to the truth.One of the fascinating things I learned in this book is about the repercussions of Cinco de Mayo on US history. You probably know that Cinco de Mayo was where the Mexican army (and a rag tag one at that) defeated French troops as they were making their way up to Mexico city from Veracruz to try and conquer the country. What the book points out is that had the Mexicans not prevailed there the French might have eventually made their way up the US border and possibly intervened on behalf of the South (the Civil War was going on at the time) as the South was currently winning the war and Napoleon III wanted to make sure the French had uninterrupted supplies of southern cotton for the French mills. A year later the French invaded again with a larger army and this time did conquer Mexico and did eventually make it to the US border but by this time the Civil War had shifted and the South was losing so the French stayed out of it. So next year when you're drinking your cerveza on Cinco de Mayo just consider what a different country you might live in (if you're an American) if Zaragoza's rag tag army hadn't defeated what was at that time considered to be the best army in the world!If you're interested in Mexican history then I highly recommend this book. I'm impressed enough with the author that I'm now buying another book of his, "Comanches", to satisfy my next interest - trying to understand the Apaches and Comanches who had such a big part in the history of the southwest.Viva Mexico!

I read this book while in Mexico and will reread it when I am in Mexico again in 2022/23

Awesome book. Fascinating

great

The book looks like a cheap reprint of a scanned copy of the book. The text is weirdly in the centre of the page in small font size and quite blurred on many pages. Never seen sth like this. Will definitely send it back.