Take a street-level tour of Mexico’s capital and learn how one of the world’s most extraordinary cities has transformed over the centuries.
 
Walking a City´shistory is both a richly documented panoramic view of Mexico City’s long history and an intimate essay on its social and cultural fabric. In this book, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo uses his expertise as a historian and his talents as a storyteller to bring the city to life.
 
Using influential moments in Mexico City’s history from the Battle of Tenochtitlán in 1521 to post-COVID times, Tenorio-Trillo illustrates the capital’s transformations against a national and global background. Walking a City’s History offers an original, unique perspective on the social, architectural, artistic, and political dimensions of Mexico City, guided by chronicles, literary works, historical accounts, and the author´s own lifetime of walks through the city.

Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books, including Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea, “I Speak of the City”: Mexico City at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, and Clio’s Laws: On History and Language.
 

Preface

Part I. There . . .
1. Water and City
2. Matters of Ruins

Part 2. Urban Baroque
3. Water Again
4. “La razón de la sinrazón”
5. “Sueños de la razón”

Part 3. The Capital City of Barely a Nation
6. Imperial Capital I
7. Nation, City: Goodbye to All That
8. Imperial Capital II

Part 4. 1910, 1914
9. Celebrating the Pax Urbana
10. 1914: The Revolutionized City

Part 5. Walking the Megalopolis
11. 1940s: Making Sense of the Megalopolis
12. Layers of Cities
13. Earthquakes: 1968, 1985
14. 2020s: Extracts from a Perambulator’s Diary
Acknowledgments
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index