"If there is one single book on the history and culture of Mexico which deserves reading above all others on this subject it is Lesley Byrd Simpson's. A comprehensive study written with wit and sympathy but without the extremes of either sentiment or pedantry."—Robert R. Kirsch, Los Angeles Times

"The tough-mindedness of the author of Many Mexicos produced a book that [seems] to me the most completely satisfying volume in English on any Latin-American country."—William Vogt, Hispanic American Historical Review

"It is at once a brief and uniquely, a witty one-volume history of Mexico, a commentary on other histories of Mexico, and a warning to dogmatic prophets."—Lewis Gannet, New York Herald-Tribune