Do not, gentle reader, recoil—do not turn away from the box that adjoins this essay! It is nothing more than a list, a random and partial list of some things that have come our way during the great ten-year retrospective on Vietnam. The shelf has no rigorous rule of selection: Some titles turned up in bookstores, some at a local newsstand, to be bought on an impulse of idle curiosity. No expert intends to hold forth here, no scholar intends to grade these (too numerous) titles. Others have already done so, most notably James Chace and David Fromkin in a truly thoughtful survey (“The Lessons of Vietnam?”) which appeared in the Spring issue of Foreign-Affairs. For us, it is enough to glance at the things on the shelf and to share a few modest observations.

Americans have long been ignorant of Mexico. For years the U.S. public has tended to view our southern neighbor as a sunlit collage of glitzy tourist havens and sleepy retirement communities. We have seen Mexico not as an emerging middle-range power but as a playground—a land of never-ending mananas and fun-loving mariachis. The stereotype has its darker side as well. Concern over debts and narcotics has aroused U.S. fears that Mexico has fallen prey to chaos and corruption. Mexico's people have thus been reduced to a hodgepodge of dozing peasants, fawning tourist guides, and scheming politicians. Our ignorance is pervasive, profound, and dangerous.