Debts Unpaid: Two Centuries of Trouble and Conflict in Mexico's Economy

by Louise E. Walker

Overview

Power struggles between debtors and creditors about unpaid debts have animated the history of economic transformation from the emergence of capitalist relations to the recent global financial crashes. Illuminating how ordinary people fought for economic justice in Mexico from the eve of independence to the early 2000s, this study argues that conflicts over small-scale debts were a stress test for an emerging economic order that took shape against a backdrop of enormous political and social change. Drawing on nearly 1,500 debt conflicts unearthed from Mexican archives, Louise E. Walker explores rapidly changing ideas and practices about property rights, contract law, and economic information. This combination of richly detailed archival research, with big historical and theoretical interpretations, raises provocative new questions about the moral economy of the credit relationship and the shifting line between exploitation and opportunity in the world of everyday exchange.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781009360432
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/30/2025
Series:	Cambridge Latin American Studies
Pages:	338
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Louise E. Walker is Professor of History at Northeastern University. Her previous publications include the prize-winning Waking from the Dream: Mexico's Middle Classes after 1968 (2013).

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Little debts: justice and citizenship in small claims, 1800s–1860s; 2. Broken contracts: precaution and risk in litigation and law, 1860s–1870s; 3. Unworthy: economic information in credit reports, 1880s–1920s; 4. Bad cheques: property crime and the moral economy of financialisation, 1930s–1980s; 5. Asking for help: letters about fairness and dispossession, 1990s–2000s; Conclusion; Bibliography; Notes; Index.

Editorial Reviews

'A truly original and important book. Using new archival sources in innovative ways, Walker brings creditors and debtors together and explores the fight for social power and legal position over a long span of Mexican history. And yet, this is a story about risk and reward that resonates beyond Mexico, reminding us that not paying debts is as much a part of the history of capitalism as debt itself.' Jeremy I. Adelman, University of Cambridge

'This pathbreaking book opens a new field of historical inquiry. Masterfully analyzing hit her to unused sources, Walker traces changes in the relationship between debtors and creditors over two centuries, providing fascinating insights into economic, political, and cultural history.' Silvia Arrom, Jane's Professor of Latin American Studies Emerita, Brandeis University

'Debts Unpaid shows us that ordinary Mexican people, far from existing on the margins of the world of finance, had complex economic lives. Walker analyzes their disputes with one another and with a growing number of financial institutions and instruments over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with creativity and insight. A highly original contribution to the history of capitalism in Mexico.' Margaret Chowning, University of California, Berkeley

'This book opens unprecedented visions of everyday people in Mexico City as they lived economic challenges ranging from post-independence adaptations, through post-revolutionary reconstructions, to post-industrial globalizations. Integrating quantitative analyses and personal engagements, Walker sets new foundations to re-think Mexico’s history of capitalism.' John Tutino, author of The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500-1800

From the Publisher