Stephen G. Rabe, Kissinger and Latin America: Intervention, Human Rights, and Diplomacy (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2020), ix + 316 pp.

Abstract

nineteenth century to organising into workers’ unions in the twentieth century – did yield some substantial gains. For instance, the establishment of a dedicated lending bank for vendors in 1943, the Banco del Pequeño Comercio del Distrito Federal (the Federal District Bank for Petty Commerce), addressed critical issues of credit for sellers and led to the organisation of credit unions. Vendor politics also undergirded the establishment of 160 new public market places throughout the city. Another notable long-term outcome of these decades of vendor activism was their inclusion in the establishment of the Confederación Nacional de Organizaciones Populares (National Confederation of Popular Organisations, CNOP), the largest sector of the postrevolutionary state’s official party in the 1930s. Vendors’ Capitalism argues that, despite some gains, street vendors and market sellers needed to continually voice their demands in order to force action on the part of urban policymakers. Bleynat explains that, even after the establishment of so many new markets, tens of thousands of vendors remained on the streets of Mexico City, who were vulnerable to the oppressive tactics of urban police and market inspectors, while many of the largest vender organisations and unions turned a blind eye to their situation. Overall, the expansive time period of the book enables Bleynat to demonstrate the historical and more contemporary centrality of markets as contested spaces and as spaces of subsistence, since selling was a primary means of production for a significant number of Mexico City residents across this time period. Vendors’ Capitalism will be essential scholarship for its contributions to Mexican history and comparative urban history of markets and sellers; it should also be read by those interested in the informal economy, internal worker hierarchies, contested public spaces, the politics of union organising, urban planning and urban development.