Mexico: A History

By: Paul Gillingham

Narrated by: Ben Cura

Brought to you by Penguin.

This sweeping new history of Mexico spans 500 dramatic years of conquest, innovation and revolution

It begins in 1511 with the shipwreck of two Spanish sailors in Yucatán. Only ten years later, an army of European adventurers and indigenous rebels seized the island city of Tenochtitlán, seat of one of the world’s great empires. It would become Mexico City, and marked the collision of two radically different worlds. Spaniards discovered tomatoes, chocolate and the most sophisticated city they had ever seen. For Mexicans the encounter brought horses, wheels, but also lethal germs – sparking a cataclysmic century of disease that would kill a majority of the indigenous population.

Paul Gillingham’s superb history chronicles how this convulsion led to a startling recombination of cultures. He shows how the industrial mining of Mexico’s silver transformed the wealth and trade of the world, making it the centre of the first truly global economy. We then see how independence from Spain went on to bring calamitous wars with the United States and France. One of the world’s great social revolutions then remade Mexico and ushered in a one-party state that, whatever its shortcomings, brought peace throughout many of the global horrors of the twentieth century – before the country collapsed into violence in the drug wars of the 2000s.

Mexico: A History uses the latest research to dazzling effect, showing how often Mexico has been one of the world’s great innovators; a dynamic and vital shaper of world affairs.

© Paul Gillingham 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025

Critic reviews

Magisterial... This fine account does well to remind that the best history is about fact, not fiction (Peter Frankopan)

A masterful account of one of the world's most complex and storied nations (Mathew Lyons)

Lively, engaging... [Gillingham] shows that the country has thrived for centuries because of its diversity, not in spite of it

A breathtaking new book . . . every one of [its] pages is worth reading . . . Gillingham writes with sparkling verve, and reveals Mexican history in all its kaleidoscopic complexity (Camilla Townsend)

An engrossing read... Enormous but enjoyable... On page after page, [Gillingham's] narrative remains grounded in the smaller-scale experience of the communities that persisted under a power that has always been more spectacular than strong... At times, as Gillingham makes clear, democracy of the Mexican variety has outshined the American kind (Álvaro Enrigue)

One of the best recent area studies of Mexico, covering half a millennium, from Aztec domination via three centuries of Spanish imperialism to revolution and independence. Paul Gillingham writes as engagingly as the celebrated Mexican columnist Armando Fuentes Aguirre (‘Catón’), but with the rigour of Hugh Thomas' Cuba or John Lynch's Bolívar (Mark Lawrence)

Magisterial… full of rich detail… has set a new standard

Vivid ... With an eye for revealing details and a rejection of tired bromides, Gillingham describes a cultural melting pot that, despite hindrances, has succeeded better than some more powerful nations in living up to its ideals (Brendan Driscoll)

Superb ... Essential, lively reading for anyone wishing to understand Mexico and contemporary geopolitics alike

Gillingham offers a vibrant and thought-provoking account ... Gillingham offers valuable historical context on Mexican immigration to the U.S. (Gerard Helferich)