British Lions and Mexican Eagles: Business, Politics, and Empire in the Career of Weetman Pearson in Mexico, 1889–1919

by Paul Garner

Between 1889 and 1919, Weetman Pearson became one of the world's most important engineering contractors, a pioneer in the international oil industry, and one of Britain's wealthiest men. At the center of his global business empire were his interests in Mexico. While Pearson's extraordinary success in Mexico took place within the context of unprecedented levels of British trade with and investment in Latin America, Garner argues that Pearson should be understood less as an agent of British imperialism than as an agent of Porfirian state building and modernization. Pearson was able to secure contracts for some of nineteenth-century Mexico's most important public works projects in large part because of his reliability, his empathy with the developmentalist project of Mexican President Porfirio Díaz, and his assiduous cultivation of a clientelist network within the Mexican political elite. His success thus provides an opportunity to reappraise the role played by overseas interests in the national development of Mexico.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published September 9, 2011

Reviews

[Sam Holley-Kline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid economic and political history of Pearson's career as a public works contractor and oil magnate in Porfirian Mexico, helpful in contextualizing 19th-20th century Mexican-British relations and the pre-1938 Mexican oil industry. Usefully for the non-historian, Garner makes his historiographic interventions explicit, and writes with admirable concision and clarity; for example, "Pearson was far more an agent of Mexican national development than an agent of British imperialism" (238).

Although by all accounts less hagiographic than other treatments of Pearson, Garner's evident admiration for the man make the frequent notes that Pearson's business and political practices (though sometimes questionable – especially as regards his activities during the Revolution) were in line with the norms of the day seem particularly invested in restoring Pearson's reputation. That being said, given the demonization of foreign oil interests in popular post-Revolution historiography, perhaps that isn't such a bad thing.

[Charles Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

FANTASTICO