The City of Mexico in the Age of Díaz (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Johns captures the pulse of a brawling city, with a sure-handed feel for both the grit and the dazzle. . . . Anybody involved in Mexico in whatever way should read this work with care, or ignore it at their peril. It is simply superb." --Karl W. Butzer, Dickson Centennial Professor of Liberal Arts, University of Texas at Austin Mexico City assumed its current character around the turn of the twentieth century, during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1876-1911). In those years, wealthy Mexicans moved away from the Zócalo, the city's traditional center, to western suburbs where they sought to imitate European and American ways of life. At the same time, poorer Mexicans, many of whom were peasants, crowded into eastern suburbs that lacked such basic amenities as schools, potable water, and adequate sewerage. These slums looked and felt more like rural villages than city neighborhoods. A century--and some twenty million more inhabitants--later, Mexico City retains its divided, robust, and almost labyrinthine character. In this provocative and beautifully written book, Michael Johns proposes to fathom the character of Mexico City and, through it, the Mexican national character that shaped and was shaped by the capital city. Drawing on sources from government documents to newspapers to literary works, he looks at such things as work, taste, violence, architecture, and political power during the formative Díaz era. From this portrait of daily life in Mexico City, he shows us the qualities that "make a Mexican a Mexican" and have created a culture in which, as the Mexican saying goes, "everything changes so that everything remains the same."

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press; 1st Edition. edition (1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292740484
• ISBN-13: 978-0292740488
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,133,508 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Turn of the century in Mexico City, April 22, 2004

By	Less High Fructose (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

I define a great book as one that changes and clarifies the way that I view the world. This one changed the way I viewed part of the world, and that's good enough for me to highly recommend it. I scarcely knew the history of the country on our southern border, and Diaz was simply a name with no context. This book is an eloquent geographical study of Mexico City during the turn of the 19th-20th century. Johns unravels cause and effect, patterns and trends, politics and society in what would seem to a visitor to be mere chaos. This academic book not only lays out the context and causes of the Revolucion, but provides some lessons in politics and power that play out even today. The only drawback is that the book brings us to the edge of the Mexican Revolution and then the book ends, like the first movie in a trilogy, teasing the reader for a sequel. But then I suppose the book would have lost its focus, so I am satisfied that is a self-contained and tight (and well-referenced) exploration of an intriguing place and time.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, June 7, 2005

By	S. N. Kras "Stefan Kras" (Den Haag Netherlands) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I prefer reading history books to novels and my favorite history books are often written in America. Michael Johns' "City of Mexico" is a fine example why American history often makes for such compelling reading. The book is a mix of excellent research, a engaging vision on the timeframe, and prose that offers a kaleidoscopical view on the city. Johns really achieves bringing back to life the Mexico City of 100 years ago, it's as if by reading this book, we walk through the streets of late 19th century Mexico city.

One of the superior qualities of the book, is that Johns has been able to present Mexico City in the Age of Diaz as a mirror of Mexico's history since the conquest by Cortes. The legacy of Mexico's repressive colonial and traumatic post-colonial history shines through every page of this book, and is illustrated by many fascinating, painful and sometimes hilarious anecdotes.

This book reminds me of another excellent book I read a couple of years ago, Jeffrey Pilcher's "Que vivan los tamales. Food and the making of Mexican identity", which is also a must-read.