About
Mike Tangeman is a writer, journalist and author of the book, Mexico at the Crossroads: Politics, the Church, and the Poor.
A reporter, editor and foreign correspondent in the 1980s-90s, Mike began his career covering predominantly Latino communities in Los Angeles, California, then reported on politics, social issues, business and finance news from Mexico, Central and South America.
After several years developing and managing online content and media strategies for internet and mobile companies in Europe, Latin America and the U.S., he returned to journalism as founding editor from 2015-2020 of Progressive Spain.com, an online portal with news and information about social issues, activism and politics in contemporary Spain.
Mike has written extensively about the Catholic church in the Americas. His non-fiction book, Mexico at the Crossroads, published to critical acclaim in 1995, focused on the role of religion, politics and the marginalization of indigenous peoples that led to the 1994 Zapatista rebellion in Mexico’s southern state of Chiapas.
Born and educated in California, Mike holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies from San Diego State University. A dual national of Ireland and the United States, he has lived most of his adult life between Mexico and Spain, where he currently resides.
Featured Work
MEXICO AT THE CROSSROADS: Politics, the Church, and the Poor
On New Year’s Day, 1994, the uprising of Indian peasants in Chiapas, Mexico signalled a dramatic new chapter in a long history that began five hundred years ago. That history involves three major players: the rich and powerful elite, the church, and the poor majority.
Mexico at the Crossroads explores the history of interaction between these rival forces in America’s closest neighbor, beginning with the arrival of Spanish conquistadors and missionaries in the sixteenth century, through the era of independence, revolution, and emergence of the modern nation.
The book provides essential background for understanding the dramatic developments in Mexico of the 1990s, including the Zapatista uprising, the assassination of a leading presidential candidate, the emergence of a vital challenge to the long-governing Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), violent debates over the NAFTA agreement and the impact of its neo-liberal program on the rights and welfare of the poor.
