Mexican Momentum

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Table of Contents

Essays

Arrests of police officers and other officials are a disconcertingly common sight in Mexico. This former federal police officer was arrested in Mexico City earlier this year and charged with leading a gang that committed robberies and kidnappings. (Getty Images)

A new president is betting that seeking peace with the drug cartels is the key to a safer Mexico.

Steven Dudley

A photographer explores Mexico’s hopeful future and heavy past.

Adriana Zehbrauskas
Petroleum and patriotism have long proved a heady mix in Mexican politics. “Serving the nation,” says this 1956 Pemex sign. (Getty Images)

In a year that brought an eruption of ambitious reform measures, the biggest of them all is the proposed overhaul of Mexico’s iconic national oil company.

Duncan Wood
Students marked the centennial of the National Autonomous University of Mexico in the streets of Mexico City’s Zócalo district in 2010. The university’s more than 300,000 students are a precious resource in a country where the average citizen has only a little more than eight years of schooling. (Newscom)

The United States is luring many of Mexico’s best and brightest northward.

Jesus Velasco
Two Predator drones rest in hangars at a base in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Even after the United States withdraws its last combat troops from Afghanistan next year, it will continue to operate drones in the country. (Getty Images)

Drones fly in the face of lessons taught to us by centuries of warfare.

F. S. Naiden

In Essence

Many unwilling soldiers bond with their new comrades through ugly means.

To convince the world you’ve prevailed in battle, sometimes you have to get creative.

Ideologues on both sides pick and choose from genetic science to support their views.

Voters say they prefer clean politicians even if they’re incompetent. Why don’t they vote that way?

Helping the poor save could be as simple as handing families safe boxes.

Accidents pitting eco-friendly cars against trucks and SUVs have increased traffic fatalities.

The accounts of elephant altruism, intelligence, and feeling are too many to be ignored.

American pharmaceutical firms are producing as many breakthrough drugs as ever.

Book Reviews

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
By David Finkel. Sarah Crichton Books. 256 pp. $26

MATHEW BRADY:
Portraits of a Nation
By Robert Wilson. Bloomsbury. 288 pp. $28

COMING UP SHORT:
Working-class Adulthood in an Age of Uncertainty
By Jennifer M. Silva. Oxford Univ. Press. 192 pp. $29.95

ON PAPER:
The Everything of Its Two-Thousand-Year History
By Nicholas A. Basbanes. Knopf. 448 pp. $35