Screening Neoliberalism: Transforming Mexican Cinema, 1988-2012.

Hispanic American Historical Review Book Reviews / National Period multinational oil companies from the country. Even so, Venezuelan production, which accounted for 34 percent of the cartel’s initial output, declined steadily. Chapter 8, on immigration and economic growth, is interesting because it shows how migration can play a role in a country’s economic development. This was particu- larly true for the United States in the nineteenth century, for instance. Venezuela and other Latin American countries at the same time also encouraged European immigra- tion, with varying degrees of success. The distinction made by the author between his primary example of two contrasting groups of migrants, one solely from Colombia and the other from the whole of Europe, is an artificial one with little heuristic value. Finally, chapter 11, on the political economy of industrial policy, suffers from the author’s desire to wander into the general realm of politics, as we are given a fascinating though flawed history of the country interspaced by a discussion of industrial policy. Other chapters also suffer from a lack of historical perspective, relying too heavily on certain sources that have not fully understood the dynamics of what was happening at the time. On a more general point, it is a pity that some of the chapters were not edited more rigorously for content, grammatical mistakes, and ease of reading. The last is particularly relevant given the level of econometrics in the book. Hopefully, this will not deter a wider audience from reading the book, because it does bring a breath of fresh air to the wider debate on economic growth and politics. The story that unfolds in this excellent contribution to the literature is a good one, and the book is likely to become essential reading for under- standing Venezuela’s economic decline during the last two decades of the twentieth century. brian mcbeth , St Antony’s College, Oxford doi 10.1215/00182168-2874836 Screening Neoliberalism: Transforming Mexican Cinema, 1988–2012. By ignacio m. sa´nchez prado . Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2014. Notes. Bibliography. Index. viii, 291 pp. Cloth, $55.00. The product of cinephilic passion and impressive erudition, well argued and compre- hensive in scope, this book may well be the definitive critical study in English of Mexican cinema at the turn of the new millennium. In several ways, the book picks up where other recent texts addressing contemporary Mexican cinema leave off. Covering filmmaking activity over four presidential sexenios (from Carlos Salinas de Gortari to Felipe Cal- dero´n), the analysis extends from the early nineties, when the state loosened its reins on the film industry, and into the period when film exhibition (as opposed to television) became skewed toward the middle and upper classes as the industry was privatized and Mexican producers, actors, and directors began aggressively seeking opportunities abroad (especially in the United States). Hence the term ‘‘neoliberal’’ in the book’s title refers to both a new model of film production and distribution and to an ideological reorientation of the mainstream Mexican cinematic message. Through a series of carefully interwoven and meticulously cross-referenced exe- geses of a diverse array of films (from authorial statements to generic entertainment), Published by Duke University Press