MEASURING UP:AHISTORY OF LIVING STANDARDS IN MEXICO, 1850–1950. Edited by Moramay L opez-Alonso. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 2012. 304 pp. ISBN 978-0-8047-7316-4. $65.00 (cloth). Early works of the new anthropometric history, which unfolded in the mid-to-late 1970s, emphasized methodol- ogy drawn from human biology as well as applications to specific historical and economic problems in which there was an established interest. This approach was neces- sary to elicit interest and to convey the meaning of results on familiar topics such as the health of slaves, mortality rates, poverty and inequality, and living stand- ards during industrialization. As the scholarship matured and the field was gradually accepted, research- ers defined new agendas, ranging from the consequences of colonialism for natives to the wellbeing of women rela- tive to men in the past and in the present. This second generation of research, though embracing a wide range of applications was still primarily one-dimensional, that is, focused on narrow descriptions and explanations of particular events or phenomena. The third generation of research, of which Measuring Up is a splendid, pioneering example, uses anthropomet- rics as a unifying device to integrate study of many aspects of the past, in this case political, economic, socio- logical, and religious history. Heights are the central source of information on human welfare, but Professor L opez-Alonso elucidates driving forces and consequences on a large canvass with a goal of evaluating policy outcomes. The first section of the book (Chapters 1–3) sketches institutions providing welfare and support for the unfor- tunate as acts of charity, early in the period provided by the Catholic Church, and eventually as public policy undertaken by government. The transition from one to the other was fractious, with a decisive step promoted by anticlerical liberals under the 1857 Constitution. This undermined the wealth and power, and therefore the capability of the Church to provide welfare, which in any event was meager relative to the needs existing in a poor, preindustrial society. After 1857, secular private institutions were unable to replace the Church and to the extent that government became involved in the early twentieth century, it viewed recipients as political allies. It was not until the C ardenas presidency of 1934–1940 that the government committed to a safety net as public policy. Therefore, one might expect that measures of wellbeing declined in the 75 years prior to the 1930s. The second section contains chapters that explain al- ternative measures of well-being, including stature, and that track the temporal, geographic, and socioeconomic differences in height. The technical information is neces- sary to make the book self-sufficient, in that some read- ers may be unfamiliar with the methodology of anthro- pometric history. The primary sources of heights are the military archives of the Department of Defense, recruit- ment files of the rural militia, and passport records. The last group had the highest socioeconomic status and its members were expected to be taller than the soldiers and the militia. Professor L opez-Alonso uses conventional geographic entities in research on Mexico (four regions and 32 states), and collapses 27 identifiable occupations into four categories: unskilled workers, skilled manual laborers, skilled white-collar workers, and the elite. Fol- lowing UNESCO convention, individuals were labeled as literate if they signed their name. Analyses were con- ducted only on individuals aged 23–49 years to avoid people that were not finished growing or shrinking because of old age. Visual inspection of the height distri- butions suggests that they were normally distributed. What are the major findings? First, there were sub- stantial differences in stature by social class, with elites (passport holders) some 3–5 cm taller than the military depending upon the time period. Second, there was an upward trend in height among the upper class passport holders through time but a decline in height among ru- ral military recruits. From birth cohorts of the 1860s to those of the early 1900s, the average height of passport holders rose by approximately 4 cm. In the military, for those born between the middle of the nineteenth century and the 1940s, average height followed a U-shape, reaching a nadir of about 165–167 cm (depending upon data source) that was about 4 cm lower than found at the beginning or the end of the period. Average heights of the 1850s were not attained again until the era of WW II by military recruits, and therefore conditions per- petuated inequality for many decades surrounding the turn of the twentieth century. The most interesting portion of the book for many nonspecialists in anthropometric history will be con- tained in the last section on the synergies between health and nutrition. These chapters describe the major changes that occurred in the 100 years after the middle of the nineteenth century with respect to public health infrastructure, diet, productivity, and urbanization. Per- sistently high fertility rates created a large share of the population that was dependent, and until the 1930s, gross domestic product per capita did not grow fast enough to support a significant welfare state. Up to that time progress in well-being was substantially limited to the elite and/or allies of the current political establish- ment. In retrospect, the misguided efforts of liberal intel- lectuals in the middle of the nineteenth century under- cut an organization (the Church) that would have provided some relief for the poor. Government had insuf- ficient resources to support the poor and whatever lim- ited resources it had were narrowly targeted to specific groups. In sum, this book goes substantially beyond traditional anthropometric history, incorporating social, economic, and political events to interpret heights. It is ambitious and diligent in recovering archival evidence that Profes- sor L opez-Alonso weaves into a compelling narrative of foundational developments in Mexico. It will interest all students of Latin American history and should appear on the book shelf of all anthropometric historians as a guide to what the next generation of research should resemble. RICHARD H. STECKEL Departments of Economics, Anthropology and History Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.22252 Published online 4 March 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). BOOK REVIEWS 165 American Journal of Physical Anthropology