Michael K. Bess, Routes of Compromise. Building Roads and Shaping the Nation in México, 1917–1952

PIGLIA, MELINA

The Journal of Transport History

Sage

Año: 2018 vol. 39 p. 263 - 265

0022-5266

Michael Bess?s book deals with the history of highway construction in post-revolutionary Mexico. Public works and roads in particular were central tools in the promotion of different versions of a project of prosperity and progress forMexico, in forging and maintaining alliances between different sections of society and in articulating extremely durable imaginaries. The perspective chosen by Bess has two great strengths: on the one hand, it breaks with analyses focussing on the engineering dimensions and analyses highways and their construction as political problems. On the other, his work transcends the analysis of the plans, debates and projects (which are easily accessible by historians) so as to address the processes of highway construction, which are more complex and difficult to reconstruct, and explores the history of the ?messy power politics? which frames them (p. 124). To pursue an enterprise of this magnitude, Bess concentrates on two contrasting cases,those of the histories of the highways in the states of Veracruz and of Nueva León,following three major lines of inquiry.In the first instance, the question of law, justice and jurisprudence is tackled. The construction of roads for cars involved the creation of new issues for the law, which had to be legislated for and judged.The second important theme which runs through this book is that of the evolution of bureaucratic agencies. Closely connected to this, Bess tackles a third question, that of financing, something which enables him to illuminate a wide range of problems arising from the variety of different arrangements that operated in the different states (i.e. the contributions of local communities in Veracruz and those of the owners of the land) or the spectre of corruption (the diversion of funds, cronyism and arrangements with friendly construction companies). This subject also highlights, as a backdrop, the emergence of a new bond with the Unites States.