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Visions of the Emerald City: Modernity, Tradition, and the Formation of Porfirian Oaxaca, Mexico
Contributor(s): Overmyer-Velazquez, Mark (Author)
ISBN: 0822337770     ISBN-13: 9780822337775
Publisher: Duke University Press
OUR PRICE:   $97.80  
Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats
Published: March 2006
Qty:
Temporarily out of stock - Will ship within 2 to 5 weeks
Additional Information
BISAC Categories:
- History | Latin America - Mexico
Dewey: 972.740
LCCN: 2005028237
Physical Information: 248 pages
Themes:
- Cultural Region - Mexican
- Chronological Period - 1851-1899
- Chronological Period - 1900-1919
 
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc.
Publisher Description:
Visions of the Emerald City is an absorbing historical analysis of how Mexicans living in Oaxaca City experienced "modernity" during the lengthy "Order and Progress" dictatorship of Porfirio D az (1876-1911). Renowned as the Emerald City (for its many buildings made of green cantera stone), Oaxaca City was not only the economic, political, and cultural capital of the state of Oaxaca but also a vital commercial hub for all of southern Mexico. As such, it was a showcase for many of D az's modernizing and state-building projects. Drawing on in-depth research in archives in Oaxaca, Mexico City, and the United States, Mark Overmyer-Vel zquez describes how Oaxacans, both elites and commoners, crafted and manipulated practices of tradition and modernity to define themselves and their city as integral parts of a modern Mexico.

Incorporating a nuanced understanding of visual culture into his analysis, Overmyer-Vel zquez shows how ideas of modernity figured in Oaxacans' ideologies of class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion and how they were expressed in Oaxaca City's streets, plazas, buildings, newspapers, and public rituals. He pays particular attention to the roles of national and regional elites, the Catholic church, and popular groups--such as Oaxaca City's madams and prostitutes--in shaping the discourses and practices of modernity. At the same time, he illuminates the dynamic interplay between these groups. Ultimately, this well-illustrated history provides insight into provincial life in pre-Revolutionary Mexico and challenges any easy distinctions between the center and the periphery or modernity and tradition.