About this item
In the city of Puebla there lived an American who made himself into the richest man in Mexico. Driven by a steely desire to prove himself-first to his wife's family, then to Mexican elites-William O. Jenkins rose from humble origins in Tennessee to build a business empire in a country energized by industrialization and revolutionary change. In Jenkins of Mexico, Andrew Paxman presents the first biography of this larger-than-life personality.When the decade-long Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910, Jenkins preyed on patrician property owners and bought up substantial real estate. He suffered a scare with a firing squad and then a kidnapping by rebels, an episode that almost triggered a US invasion. After the war he owned textile mills, developed Mexico's most productive sugar plantation, and helped finance the rise of a major political family, the vila Camachos.
About the Author
I write biographies that equally address the specialist and general reader. Born in London, I spent the 1990s as a journalist in Mexico, where I co-wrote El Tigre: Emilio Azcárraga y su imperio Televisa (2000) , a life of Latin America's answer to Rupert Murdoch, the TV mogul EMILIO AZCÁRRAGA MILMO. A 3rd edition, with an extended preface, appeared in 2013.
In 2000 I began an M.A. in Latin American Studies at Berkeley, followed by a PhD in History at UT Austin. In 2009-13 I taught history at Millsaps College in Mississippi. As of 2014, I am a research professor at the Center for Research & Teaching in Economics (CIDE) in Mexico.
My latest book is a biography of WILLIAM JENKINS, once the richest and most controversial industrialist in Mexico. The book is available in English as Jenkins of Mexico (Oxford University Press) and in Spanish as En busca del señor Jenkins (PenguinRandomHouse) .
My next project is a life of the global telecoms magnate CARLOS SLIM, who between 2007 and 2014 vied with Bill Gates as the world's richest person.
