The charismatic former President of Mexico offers a clear and candid perspective on the state of world affairs

When Vicente Fox swept into office in 2000, he broke the dictatorial one-party rule that had strangled Mexico for over seventy years. A native son of Mexico, grandson of immigrants from the United States and Spain, Fox worked his way from ranch hand and truck driver to the youngest CEO in the history of Coca-Cola. His political rise from precinct worker to world leader was equally swift. As president, Vicente Fox steered Mexico's fragile young democracy through turbulent times, ushering in six years of economic stability and reform in health care, education, and housing, with increased freedom of the press. His presidency also reduced poverty and tackled corruption.

Vicente Fox embodies the American Dream in its broadest sense as a vision of the New World, as well as the story of Mexico. Elected as a political outsider with a message of honesty, change, and hope, he is truly a world hero of democracy. This vivid book interweaves his inspiring personal story with his bold ideas for the future of the planet.

For the first time, President Fox reveals the ups and downs of his close but rocky relationships with world leaders from President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to Fidel Castro, Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chvez.

In Revolution of Hope, President Fox outlines a new vision of hope for the future of the Americas. He speaks out forcefully on hot global topics like immigration, the war in Iraq, racism, globalization, the role of the United Nations, free trade, religion, gender equity, indigenous rights and the moral imperative to heal the global divide between rich and poor nations.

From the man who brought true democracy to Mexico, Revolution of Hope is a personal story of triumph and a political vision for the future.

"Fox, who broke 71 years of one-party rule in Mexico when he became president in 2000, recounts his unconventional approach to Mexican politics as well as how he got there in the first place. With co-writer and political consultant Allyn, he explains his beginnings on his family's ranch, where he slowly began to realize the great difference between himself and the farmhands' children with whom he played. Though he was eventually sent to high school in Wisconsin and completed a university degree in Mexico City, Fox never shed his ranchero ways, rendered rather nostalgically in the book. After a stint as a young top executive with Coca-Cola, Fox began his political career, wearing cowboy boots the whole way. In addition to the story of his assent in politics, Fox offers his opinions on immigration and economic integration, the latter of which he is great proponent. Written with an American audience in mind, he repeatedly presents the argument that more trade between the United States and Mexico, with more jobs in Mexico — not a wall — is the solution to immigration problems. Fox is candid in the book and opens up about the controversial moments of his political career. However, the book reveals less about Fox than about his hopeful vision for the world." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"Relations between the United States and Mexico have long been poisoned by the problems of cross-border migration. The northward human flow has been welcomed by business but reviled by nativists, distorted by outside wars and catastrophes, and debated with equal hypocrisy and mistrust in what Vicente Fox, Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006, calls a 'bleak pattern of mutual misunderstanding.'

... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Most Americans today are probably not in the mood to listen to what Fox, or any other Mexican, has to say on the subject. With an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, many Americans feel besieged by a tide of Spanish-speaking strangers, angry at the U.S. government for failing to stop it, and unsympathetic to the plight of people who break American laws to escape poverty their own leaders have failed to alleviate.

But there is another side to the story and thoughtful voices from across the Rio Grande that need to be heard amid the shrillness of this emotionally charged moment. They remind us that Mexico, too, is grappling with the issue of how to feed and keep its workers, that its leaders are also constrained by domestic politics and posturing, that its emerging democracy is making it a better neighbor. They also point out that Mexican Americans are a permanent part of our society and that Mexico's economic future is ultimately linked with ours.

Fox's book, 'Revolution of Hope,' written in English and launched with a U.S. tour, makes a direct plea to the American people to see Mexican immigrants in a kinder light. He wants us to have patience with Mexico's fledgling efforts at political and economic reform, and to seek common solutions rather than building walls. His tone is often hyperbolic, but his message is heartfelt.

'A Mexican farm boy who crawls across the barbed wire at the Rio Grande desperately loves his homeland,' Fox writes. 'Only the gnawing hunger and low wages on one side of the border, and the golden promise of economic opportunity on the other' drive him to flee to an alien land where hard, dirty work awaits him.

Fox views these emigrants, whether legal or illegal, as both Mexican 'heroes' and American assets. He argues that they are helping America compete with global rivals as well as providing Mexico with an economic safety valve.

A rancher known for blunt, salty language, Fox is both a proud, sentimental Mexican and an ardent admirer of America. He helped end 70 years of ossified one-party rule and took office in 2000, eager to open up Mexico's economy and seek a long-elusive immigration pact with Washington, banking on his friendship with President Bush.

But as he recounts with deep regret, the prospects for any agreement collapsed with the attacks of Sep. 11, 2001. A day of terror plunged Washington into a war Mexico could not support, and gave fearful, angry Americans 'a pretext for acting out their xenophobia.' At home, Fox's economic agenda was thwarted by domestic opponents, and his dream of peaceful democratic transition marred by an ugly election controversy.

In part, 'Revolution of Hope' is an effort to redeem Fox's legacy. It is laden with bromides and self-indulgent asides — the nostalgic memories of his childhood ranch, the gee-whiz accounts of visiting China or meeting the pope. He comes across as temperamental but guileless, self-absorbed but humble — an appealing persona that has been further tarnished by recent reports of Fox's lavish, post-presidential lifestyle.

But the book becomes relevant to American readers only when Fox switches from 'I' to 'we.' When he talks about Mexico's future, he is also talking about ours. When he lashes out at American insensitivity, he also criticizes Mexican isolationism. When he lauds the courage of illegal immigrants, he also rues Mexico's inability to pay them enough to stay. 'Our greatest failure,' he confesses, 'is that they are leaving still.'

Fox is premature in his vision of a North American common market where the free flow of goods and workers will benefit all sides. As long as wages are 10 times higher on one side, the flow will remain hopelessly lopsided. But he is prescient in his parallel arguments about the mutual opportunities and challenges faced by both countries, and about their inevitable need for each other in a tough global economy.

'Revolution of Hope' will not stop the furor over illegal Latino immigrants, but it does make us ponder the futility of building physical and emotional barriers against them. Mexico's own history, Fox points out, shows that 'we cannot live forever with a wealthy few inside the walls and the masses locked outside.' The American way of life, he adds, 'cannot exist in a Fortress America.'

Jorge G. Castaneda, a Mexican intellectual who served as Fox's foreign minister, covers much of the same ground in his forthcoming 'Ex Mex,' but he makes a more tightly argued and documented case for the advantages of Latino immigration. His monograph, stuffed with statistics, strives for academic objectivity while acknowledging the author's pro-Mexican bias.

Castaneda focuses on several issues that help explain the sudden panic over a phenomenon many decades old. One is the collapse of 'circularity,' a long-standing Mexican tradition of seasonal labor migration to the States and back, which was halted by new immigration laws in the 1990s that stiffened penalties for immigrants caught sneaking in a second time. Several recessions in Mexico, an economic boom in the United States and implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement also exacerbated the influx of illegal immigrants.

Eventually the surge reached a 'tipping point,' he says, creating 'the impression that the United States was literally being swamped.' Mexican migrants also moved deeper into U.S. territory, putting down roots in communities with little exposure to immigrants, 'bringing their families to join them in places where Spanish had never been spoken, chiles and tortillas were never eaten.' The emotional backlash was 'inexcusable,' he writes, but also 'understandable.'

But Castaneda also argues persuasively that the 'pull' factor luring illegal immigrants to U.S. jobs remains as strong as ever, and that they perform tasks that are too dirty or dangerous to attract native Americans. He focuses on meatpacking plants in Iowa, where federal immigration agents staged a series of raids in 2006. Despite public resentment of the workers, he says, 76 percent of local residents in one poll said immigrants 'take jobs other Iowans don't want.'

A sharp-eyed student of American politics, Castaneda offers a trenchant if jargon-filled analysis of the recent congressional debacle over immigration reform. He echoes Fox's urgent call for bilateral action, but he warns more coolly that nothing, neither walls nor deportations, will stop poor Mexicans from crossing the Rio Grande until the region's severe economic imbalance begins to change.

Despite its unappealing title, Gregory Rodriguez's 'Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds' provides a fascinating excursion through the history of Mexican immigrants in the United States. Full of instructive revelations and forgotten facts, the book shows how the treatment and status of immigrants have always been hostage to the vicissitudes of history — from the Gold Rush to the invasion of Iraq.

The best sections of this book by a Mexican American columnist for the Los Angeles Times cover events that occurred long ago. But by putting the current tensions in a solid historical context, Rodriguez offers hope that they too will eventually subside and be followed by a cooler spell in which a lasting, more rational solution can prevail over the politics of fear and bigotry.

He first traces the racial history of the Spanish colonial era, when inhabitants were rigidly stratified according to their mix of Indian, black and European blood ('Spaniard and Indian beget mestizo, Mestizo and Spanish woman beget castizo. ... Barcino and mulatto woman beget coyote' and so on). Moving into the post-independence era, he explores Mexico's northern cities like San Antonio and Los Angeles, where the mestizo populace was increasingly challenged by Anglo settlers.

The U.S. defeat of Mexico's army in 1848 was a victory for both American slavery and territorial expansion, but the war also sparked debate over 'the character of the Mexicans,' whom many whites viewed as a lowly 'mongrel race.' 'Even as their nation expanded,' Rodriguez writes, 'Americans recoiled in horror at the thought of absorbing an alien population.'

During the next century, millions of Mexicans immigrated to the United States. Some managed to rise in society, but far more remained marginalized and subject to abuse and discrimination from Anglo vigilantes, bosses and pioneers. At the same time, American dependence on cheap labor from Mexico became an enduring fact: Workers were first press-ganged to build highways or pick fruit, then brought in seasonally under the 'bracero' temporary labor program. Yet American society remained ambivalent, welcoming these workers in prosperous times and turning nativist during recessions.

Today the country is full of frenzied alarm once more, and neither Fox's personal plea, Castaneda's reasoned arguments nor Rodriguez's history lesson can compete with the fear and anger of the times. But on a calmer day, such thoughtful voices may yet find an audience among concerned Americans who realize that the fate of Mexico's economy, democracy and human populace is inextricably linked with ours.

Pamela Constable is a staff writer and former foreign correspondent for The Washington Post. She has reported periodically from Mexico and Central America since 1983.

" Reviewed by Pamela Constable, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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"Memoir of the former Mexican president, whose remarkable rise to power was followed by a six-year tenure in office that was marked by an extraordinary upswing in the country's fortunes.

Published less than a year after his presidency came to a close, this wide-ranging overview of Fox's life unfolds at a furious pace, as he catalogs his many personal and professional achievements. Fox and co-author Allyn keep the political rhetoric to a minimum, only occasionally lapsing into corny sweeping statements about the state of the world. Instead, they focus on Fox's transformation from a truck driver for Coca-Cola to the first Mexican president to be elected from an opposition party since 1920. The book initially focuses on Fox's early life, offering insight into his upbringing, details about his family life and vivid descriptions of the poverty that beset the country in the future president's formative years. Though his family was by no means wealthy, his father's career as a ranchero earned enough for Fox to study at a Jesuit school in Wisconsin. Menial jobs followed, and, in a move that paralleled his astounding rise to president, Fox managed to work his way up from truck driver to CEO of Coca-Cola's Mexican operation. As Fox reveals his admirable achievements, he litters the text with asides, comments and anecdotes, most of which make for revealing and entertaining reading. He unravels his encounter with Arnold Schwarzenegger (Fox had his own "Schwarzenegger problem," as his mother was not a native Mexican citizen), offers his timely opinion on Barack Obama, discusses his differences with George W. Bush, presents a passionate argument for globalization and explains why he's a voracious reader of political memoirs. These elements, along with the thrilling descriptions of the buildup to Fox's election victory, provide a welcome personal touch to an already well-documented story.

Cynics looking for PR spin may be surprised by this book, which is driven by Fox's undeniable raconteurial skills and his keen eye for drama."

Kirkus Reviews

The charismatic former President of Mexico offers a clear and candid perspective on the state of world affairs. 16-page b&w photo insert.

Vicente Fox, born in Mexico in 1942, was the president of Mexico from 2000 &2006. Before being elected president he was a rancher, boot-maker, Coca-Cola CEO, and governor.

Rob Allyn is an author, commentator, speech writer, and political consultant who has worked closely with Fox for a decade.