On Empires and Republics: Courtship between Mexico and Brazil, 1822-1867

This a discussion of Mexico's and Brazil's diplomatic relations among themselves, during the formative period of national states, stressing the difficulties faced by the different government systems that were adopted by these two countries. In this context, the author carries out an analysis of the imagery that diplomats started to elaborate about the observed nation. Both the optical quality and adjustment of the lens with which they look at each other, and the play between checks and balances within which both Mexico and Brazil interact with each other, in function of their respective geopolitical areas, is discussed. As a central counterpoint, there is a focusing of the role played by the United States as an emerging world power in the transactions between both countries, which originated a tripartite set of vested interests that lasts up to the present. Similarly, other variables affecting contacts among these two nations still retain their importance, since these contacts find their roots in the first half of the nineteenth century