My first thought in reviewing such a massive undertaking is to wonder for whom it (either review or volume) was intended. Obviously, a review in the JLAS speaks to professionals in history and economics, above all, who want to know how the Mexican economy in time ‘t’ got to, say, time ‘t+500’, and to find this out in a reasonably efficient and coherent way. On the one hand, such readers will not find a statistical appendix in the style of Leandro Prados de la Escosura (El progreso económico de España, Fundación BBVA, 2003), although the volume provides abundant new statistical data, some drawn directly from archival and printed primary sources, most bearing on macro-economic aggregates or proxies for them. Nor will readers find substantive bibliographic essays in the style of The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America, although each of the 19 chapters includes bibliography and references, some lengthy and detailed, others more perfunctory. What they will find, however, is something quite extraordinary: the first one-volume summary of the trajectory of the Mexican economy ‘from the Colonial Period until the Present’ (p. 9). All chapters are the work of outstanding specialists in their field, most of whom are Mexican or resident in Mexico. About a third of the volume is devoted to the ‘long’ twentieth century, the authors of which chapters nearly all trained as economists. Whether this disproportion in temporal and topical coverage is a matter of comparative advantage or of a less benign imperialism, only the coordinating editor, Sandra Kuntz, can say. In reality, Historia económica general strikes me as a rather more (or less) focused companion to the overwhelmingly successful Nueva historia general de México, with which it shares a number of contributors. If the prospect of tackling this book is daunting, there are both detailed introduction and conclusion by Sandra Kuntz, who, along with the active assistance of a working advisory council and a number of other consulting but non-contributing scholars, has brought a truly impressive project to fruition. So, the answer to the question ‘Where do you start if you want to know what this generation of (mostly) Mexican scholars thinks constitute the rudiments, outlines and basic findings of the economic history of their country?’ is simple. You start here, with this book. How could you do any better? Providence was considerably less kind to those of us who were directed to begin with the work of Pierre and Huguette Chaunu back in the day.

Reviewers are expected to quibble, to dispute and to wreak havoc with the work of their colleagues. I am very disinclined to do so with this volume, if only because I witnessed a small portion of the intense professional effort dedicated to its production. I could not have done better than Sandra Kuntz, nor would I have even tried. Which is not to say that I, or anyone else for that matter, would not have come to different, perhaps very different conclusions.

For example, when all is said and done, the intellectual framework that undergirds the colonial section is fairly conventional and, quite explicitly, based on the influential work of Carlos Sempat. That is fine. It makes sense and may even be correct. Yet it is not obvious that we understand the connection between silver mining and economic change in colonial Mexico. Silver comprised virtually all of Mexico's tradable production, but its costs were overwhelmingly labour costs, and at any given moment, what share of the labour force (an anachronistic concept, admittedly) actually worked in the mines and refineries? Silver determined the nominal exchange rate, but also the division between tradable and non-tradable goods (the real exchange rate). Yet I remain unconvinced that the production of silver determined demand in a broader, macro-economic sense.

Was there a post-independence ‘depression?’ We do not know. The data are not there now. The view presented here, which is modestly unconventional, may be more accurate. Yet the emerging anthropometric research suggests a considerably more subtle view of the course of development, one in which measures of aggregate output are actively misleading. Again, until we have a broadly representative series of empirical studies of regions and economic sectors, we will not and cannot know.

Finally, the inadequacies of the import substitution model conditional upon the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement in August 1971 may be fair game, and Kuntz herself makes that important qualification. Yet considered judgments looked very different as late as 1970, and the redistributionist policies that later destabilised the economy were a product of, dare we say, the perceived – if narrowly defined – success of the import-substitution model, or, more cynically, from the wake-up call administered by Tlatelolco in 1968. One doesn't expect economists to think like historians, but historians, alas, have no excuse for denying their professional identity. You cannot fathom the motivations or perceptions of historical actors by checking on how things turned out. There is a name for that, and teleological anachronism used to be a mortal sin, or, at the very least, sinful.

I have raised three matters, not all equally important, that are of interest to me. This very modern text has its own site on the internet (http://hegmadebate.wordpress.com/), where the editorial team encourages others to enter active debate with their own concerns. For instance, someone there questions whether or not starting in 1519 is not, in effect, Eurocentric. Was the economy of Tenochtitlan simply endowed with markets, as opposed to being a market economy? Does the distinction make a difference to the subsequent course of development? Surely this is a vital question. I encourage any reader of this book, and there need to be many, to contribute to the discussion. I am certain Sandra Kuntz and her colleagues, their sizeable efforts notwithstanding, are already planning for future editions of this indispensable volume, and they will pay attention to what readers have to say.