Abstract
Social Stratification in Central Mexico, 1500–2000 is an ambitious discussion of the evolution of stratification in Central Mexico over the last 500 years. Written by anthropologists Hugo Nutini and Barry Isaac, who bring over 50 years of fieldwork experience in Central Mexico to bear on the topic of social stratification, the book exposes readers to the concepts of class, race/ethnicity, colonialism, and religion, all in an accessible presentation of Mexican history and stratification.
The book is written in two parts. The first, comprised of three chapters, covers the historical period from first Spanish contact with the Aztec Empire in the early 1500s to the end of the revolutionary period beginning in 1910. Chapter One makes the distinction between social class and estate-based stratification systems, while Chapter Two offers a very nice discussion of the role of race/ethnicity in Mexican stratification. Those who are unfamiliar with Mexican history will find the thorough treatment of Mexican racial classes, including their origins and destinies, particularly enlightening. The final chapter in Part One covers the Hacienda system and its role in pre-revolutionary stratification.
Part Two, comprised of five chapters and covering the post-revolutionary period from 1920 to 2000, accounts for roughly two-thirds of the text of the book. Three chapters are devoted to the upper, middle, and urban working classes, and a fourth focuses on the transition from an ethnic-oriented stratification system to one primarily based on social class. The authors opt for a subjective interpretation of social class and so readers will not find standard-fair tables and figures derived from quantitatively-oriented class analysis. Perhaps of most interest to many sociologists is the final chapter, where the authors spend considerable time discussing “expression,” the notion that certain individual and group (including families, classes, and estates) motivations are inherently non-instrumental in that the behavior is an end in itself. This text will be of particular value to students of stratification and social mobility and Latin American Studies courses, but might be of equal value to students of race and ethnicity.