This groundbreaking study marks the culmination of over twenty years of research by one of this country's most prominent Mexico scholars. Roderic Ai Camp provides a detailed, comprehensive examination of Mexico's power elite-their political power, societal influence, and the crucial yet often overlooked role mentoring plays in their rise to the top. In the course of this book, he traces the careers of approximately four hundred of the country's most notable politicians, military officers, clergy, intellectuals, and capitalists. Thoroughly researched and drawn from in-depth interviews with some of Mexico's most powerful players, Mexico's Mandarins provides insight into the machinations of Mexican leadership and an important glimpse into the country's future as it steps onto the global stage. "Mexico's Mandarins represents scholarship of superior quality and is virtually unique in the level of information on which it draws. No other scholar could have written this book and no other scholar will ever be able to reproduce it. I suspect that it will become the definitive work on Mexican elites in the twentieth century."--Kathleen Bruhn, author of Mexico: The Struggle for Democratic Development

"After thirty years of studying individual Mexican elites--political, economic, intellectual, military, and religious--Camp brings together the conclusions from all of his previous research in one capstone volume. This unique study offers the first thorough investigation of Mexico's power elites and, for the first time, identifies the essential role played by mentors in the Mexican system of recruiting, promoting, and facilitating the power elites. This is a masterful work that should be read by everyone interested in twentieth century Mexico and those interested in the behavior of power elites."--William H. Beezley, author of The Oxford History of Mexico