This important interdisciplinary work makes original contributions to the study of the state-society relations in Latin America and to the comparative analysis of labor's role in regime change. Middlebrook's theoretical framework identifies the principal dimensions of elite control over mass participation in postrevolutionary authoritarian regimes and highlights the most important aspects of Mexican authoritarianism. By demonstrating organized labor's central importance in the formation and evolution of Mexico's distinctive authoritarian regime, Middlebrook also lays the basis for a major reinterpretation of key features of twentieth-century Mexican politics.

"Any scholar interested in Latin American social and political questions over the last one hundred years will sooner or later read this book. Mexicanists worth their salt will read it as soon as they can get it. The scholarship is outstandingly sound. It is rigorous in conceptualization and analysis, and in the historical parts as good as the best histories of Mexican labor and politics." -- John Womack Jr., Harvard University