John M. Ackerman is the Director of the Research Program on Democracy, Justice and Society at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). He is a Professor at the Institute for Legal Research of the UNAM and has published numerous books and scholarly articles in English and Spanish on the Mexican political system. He is Editor-in-Chief of the Mexican Law Review, Vice-President of the International Association of Administrative Law and has served as a Visiting Scholar at American University in Washington, D.C and at Sorbonne (Paris III) and Sciences Po in Paris, France. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz as well as a Ph.D. in Law from UNAM and a B.A. in Philosophy from Swarthmore College. He hosts the weekly news analysis shows “Democratic dialogues” on TV UNAM and writes frequently on Latin American politics for the international press, including Los Angeles Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, Suddeutsche Zeitung, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, The Nation, RT and The Atlantic.
This mostly forgotten war led to Mexico losing over half its territory and the United States expanding to the Pacific. The lecture examines the political and economic background of the conflict, what led to it, and the roles of such factors as Texas annexation in 1845, slavery, racism, the Democratic and Whig parties, and Manifest... Read more