Review by Choice Review
Employing a nontraditional periodization, Arnold analyzes the continuities and discontinuities between the late colonial imperial state and the federal republic in terms of the bureaucracy in Mexico City. She finds a fundamental continuity in the Enlightenment ideology of material and cultural progress that was successfully promoted by the Bourbons, embraced by Mexico's early national politicians, but left largely unrealized by both. The primary discontinuity was a political revolution. Whereas the Bourbons sought to accomplish the commonly held goal of material and cultural progress by professionalizing the imperial bureaucracy, the national politicians sought to do so by deprofessionalizing it. For the royal bureaucrat, that meant replacing job security and prestige with uncertainty and declining status, replacing participation in administrative decision-making with isolated functional service, replacing semiautonomy with total dependence on politicians. Using ample and salient biographical examples and quantitative data, Arnold details the changes in the bureaucrats' career opportunities, work environment, and personal life-style. The data tables are well placed, the writing clear and concise, the subheadings in each chapter most helpful. A well-documented, previously unresearched monographic study for the specialist, yet a thought-provoking work for the generalist. -S. F. Voss, SUNY College at Plattsburgh
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
