[Cross-posted from New Books in Political Science] Benjamin Marquez is the author of Democratizing Texas Politics: Race, Identity, and Mexican American Empowerment, 1945-2002 (University of Texas Press 2014). Marquez is professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Democratizing Texas Politics covers 50 years of Texas political history, but also the changing institutional power of parties, organizations, and groups in state politics. Marquez draws on a host of historical archives to reconstruct the alliances and conflicts between numerous Mexican American leaders in the state. He captures the personalities of this movement, but also the way the ideas of Mexican American political identity evolved over these 50 years.