Benjamin Smith is Associate Professor of History at the University of Warwick and is the author of The Roots of Conservatism in Mexico: Catholicism, Society, and Politics in the Mixteca Baja, 1750-1962, among other works on modern Mexican history. In this seminar, he will analyse the development of political conservatism in Mexico from the age of independence in the early nineteenth century through the historic victory of the right-of-centre Partido Accion Nacional in the presidential election of 2000.