Mexico's petroleum industry has come to symbolize the very sovereignty of the nation itself. Politicians criticize Pemex, the national oil company, at their peril, and President Salinas de Gortari has made clear that the free trade negotiations between Mexico and the United States will not affect Pemex's basic status as a public enterprise. How and why did the petroleum industry gain such prominence and, some might say, immunity within Mexico's political economy?

The Mexican Petroleum Industry in the Twentieth Century, edited by Jonathan C. Brown and Alan Knight, seeks to explain the impact of the oil sector on the nation's economic, political, and social development. The book is a multinational effort—one author is Australian, two British, three North American, and five Mexican. Each contributing scholar has researched and written extensively about Mexico and its oil industry.

Preface
Introduction (Alan Knight)
1. The Structure of the Foreign-Owned Petroleum Industry in Mexico, 1880–1938 (Jonathan C. Brown)
2. The Cultural Roots of the Oil Workers’ Unions in Tampico, 1910–1925 (S. Lief Adleson)
3. The Rise and Fall of Union Democracy at Poza Rica, 1932–1940 (Alberto J. Olvera)
4. The Politics of the Expropriation (Alan Knight)
5. Worker Participation in the Administration of the Petroleum Industry, 1938–1940 (Ruth Adler)
6. The Expropriation and Great Britain (Lorenzo Meyer)
7. The Expropriation in Comparative Perspective (George Philip)
8. Technical and Economic Problems of the Newly Nationalized Industry (Fabio Barbosa Cano)
9. The Consolidation and Expansion of Pemex, 1947–1958 (Isidro Morales)
10. Pemex during the 1960s and the Crisis in Self-Sufficiency (Isidro Morales)
11. The Oil Industry and Mexico’s Relations with the Industrial Powers (Gabriel Székely)
Conclusion: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Oil Sector in Mexican Society (George Baker)
Contributors
Index