As we celebrate Cinco de Mayo this weekend, we’ve collected a long list of free eBooks about Mexico. These books come from the Internet Archive, and include a treasure trove of 18th, 19th and 20th Century writings about Mexico.
See the country through the eyes of explorers, archeologists, travelers, writers and colonizers in these books. History Channel described the holiday:
[It] commemorates the Mexican army’s 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867) … Cinco de Mayo traditions include parades, mariachi music performances and street festivals in cities and towns across Mexico and the United States.
Free Books About Mexico
Anahuac: or, Mexico and the Mexicans, ancient and modern by Edward Burnett Tylor
Travels of Anna Bishop in Mexico by Anna Rivière Bishop
Incidents of travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan (Volume 1) (Volume 2) by John Lloyd Stephens (image embedded above via volume 2)
Down that Pan American Highway by Roger Stephens
Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and republican : a historical, geographical, political, statistical and social account (Volume 1) (Volume 2)
A gringo in manana-land by Harry L. Foster
The Mexican guide by Janvier Thomas Allibone
Through southern Mexico : being an account of the travels of a naturalist by Hans Friedrich Gadow
Face to face with the Mexicans: the domestic life, educational, social and business ways, statesmanship and literature, legendary and general history of the Mexican people, as seen and studied by an American woman during seven years of intercourse with them by Fanny Chambers Gooch Iglehart
Geographical and statistical notes on Mexico by Romero Matías
Days and nights in the tropics by William Richard Harris
Mexico: its geography, its people, and its institutions: with a map, containing the result of the latest explorations of Fremont, Wilkes, and others by Thomas Jefferson Farnham
Folks next door; the log book of a rambler – William Augustus Croffut
Wanderings in Mexico; the spirited chronicle of adventure in Mexican highways and byways by Owen Wallace Gillpatrick
A Mexican journey by Emil Harry Blichfeldt
Our sister republic: a gala trip through tropical Mexico in 1869-70 … and reminiscences of the empire and its downfall by Albert S Evans
The Mexican guide by Thomas Allibone Janvier