Jenkins of Mexico

In the city of Puebla there lived an American who made himself into the richest man in Mexico. Driven by a steely desire to prove himself-first to his wife's family then to Mexican elites-William O. Jenkins rose from humble origins in Tennessee to build a business empire in a country energized by industrialization and revolutionary change. In Jenkins of Mexico Andrew Paxman presents the first biography of this larger-than-life personality. <p/>When the decade-long Mexican Revolution broke out in 1910 Jenkins preyed on patrician property owners and bought up substantial real estate. He suffered a scare with a firing squad and then a kidnapping by rebels an episode that almost triggered a US invasion. After the war he owned textile mills developed Mexico's most productive sugar plantation and helped finance the rise of a major political family the �vila Camachos. During the Golden Age of Mexican cinema in the 1940s-50s he lorded over the film industry with his movie theater monopoly and key role in production. By means of Mexico's first major hostile takeover he bought the country's second-largest bank. Reputed as an exploiter of workers a puppet-master of politicians and Mexico's wealthiest industrialist Jenkins was the gringo that Mexicans loved to loathe. After his wife's death he embraced philanthropy and willed his entire fortune to a foundation named for her which co-founded two prestigious universities and funded projects to improve the lives of the poor in his adopted country. <p/>Using interviews with Jenkins' descendants family papers and archives in Puebla Mexico City Los Angeles and Washington <em> Jenkins of Mexico</em> tells a contradictory tale of entrepreneurship and monopoly fearless individualism and cozy deals with power-brokers embrace of US-style capitalism and political anti-Americanism and Mexico's transformation from semi-feudal society to emerging economic power.<br>