""The Impossible Triange" succeeds on many levels, but perhaps none more than in its innovative trilateral approach. The Mexico that emerges from Spenser's narrative is both object--of the unequal struggle for influence between the United States and the Soviet Union--and subject, capable of dealing with these two 'courtiers' on its own terms. This engagingly-told story reminds us of the radical contingencies thrown up by the Bolshevik Revolution and how that revolution permanently altered the conduct of international relations."--Lewis Siegelbaum, Michigan State University

Foreword / Friedrich Katz ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Part One- The Encounter of Two Revolutions, 1917-1924
1 The United States in Search of Its Mexican Policy 9
2 Mexico in Soviet Calculations 32
3 Soviet Russia in Mexican Politics 51
Part Two- The Revolutions Arrive at Cross-Purposes, 1924-1927
4 The United States Challenges Mexico 75
5 The Soviets Misunderstand Their Meixcan Friend 95
6 Mexico at the Crossroads 113
Part Three- The Revolutions Collide, 1928-1930
7 The United States as Good Neighbor 133
8 The Ideological Excesses of the Comintern 152
9 The Break in relations between Mexico and the USSR 170
Final Reflections 191
Notes 195
Bibliography 231
Index 251