Includes bibliographical references (p.281-285).

Whither the new nation? A land of contrasts / Alexander von Humboldt -- A sketch of Mexican society / Joel Poinsett -- Life in a convent / Fanny Calderón de la Barca -- With the Stars and Stripes in Mexico / William Henry -- A view of tropical Veracruz / Carl Sartorius -- Defending the French intervention / Emmanuel Domenech -- Life in Maximilian's Mexico City / Paula von Kollonitz -- Porfirian modernization. Three days of fiesta in Mexico City / Clément Bertie-Marriott -- Culture shock in northern Mexico / Fanny Chambers Gooch -- From the Tarascos to Porfirio Díaz / Carl Lumholtz -- Military diazpotism in theory and practice / Charles Flandrau -- The barbarous Porfiriato / John K. Turner -- Revolution and reconstruction. With Zapata in Cuernavaca / Rosa King -- Viva Villa! / John Reed -- Keeping house in revolutionary Mexico City / Luise Böker -- A revolution for the Indians? / B. Traven -- Mexico for the Mexicans / Luis Araquistáin -- A country without conservatives / Evelyn Waugh -- Freedom for Mexican women? / Verna Millan -- The "Mexican miracle" and its collapse. The downside of the miracle / Franz Böker -- The best of tradition and modernity / Irene Nicholson -- Tourism, bullfights, and bullets (letters to President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz) -- Survival in the shantytown / Judith Adler Hellman -- Travels among the Zapatistas / Isabel Tree -- The dead women of Juárez / Sam Quinones.