Eric L. Olson, Senior Associate at the Mexico institute, has reviewed Denise Dresser's book titled "My Country: Insights to Understand and Change Mexico". The review appears on page 10 of the recent issue of Americas Quarterly for the winter of 2012.

Despite boasting the second largest economy in Latin America, a noteworthy record of fiscal and economic management in the midst of global turmoil, and envious commercial ties to the United States, Mexico has failed to take its rightful place as a global powerhouse. Many observers wonder why Mexico has not achieved its true potential. What, for instance, has prevented Mexico from joining the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and—now—South Africa)?

In El país de uno: Reflexiones para entender y cambiar a México (My Country: Insights to Understand and Change Mexico), Denise Dresser concludes that Mexico has no one to blame but itself for its lackluster performance.

Dresser, a distinguished professor at the Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, columnist at Proceso magazine and editorial writer at Reforma, offers a sharp, unflinching and penetrating analysis of today’s Mexico that traces much of the problem to the failure to live up to expectations raised by the 2000 electoral defeat of the single-party state led by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party—PRI) for most of the previous century.