Regular price £34.58 GBP
Regular price Sale price £34.58 GBP
Sale Sold out
Free UK Shipping

Freshly Printed - allow 7 days lead

Visible Ruins
The Politics of Perception and the Legacies of Mexico's Revolution

Mónica M. Salas Landa (Author)

9781477328712, University of Texas Press

Hardback, published 7 May 2024

272 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.6 cm, 0.626 kg

An examination of the failures of the Mexican Revolution through the visual and material records.

The Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) introduced a series of state-led initiatives promising modernity, progress, national grandeur, and stability; state surveyors assessed land for agrarian reform, engineers used nationalized oil for industrialization, archaeologists reconstructed pre-Hispanic monuments for tourism, and anthropologists studied and photographed Indigenous populations to achieve their acculturation. Far from accomplishing their stated goals, however, these initiatives concealed violence, and permitted land invasions, forced displacement, environmental damage, loss of democratic freedom, and mass killings. MÓnica M. Salas Landa uses the history of northern Veracruz to demonstrate how these state-led efforts reshaped the region's social and material landscapes, affecting what was and is visible. Relying on archival sources and ethnography, she uncovers a visual order of ongoing significance that was established through postrevolutionary projects and that perpetuates inequality based on imperceptibility.

  • List of Illustrations
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: Governing through Perception
  • Chapter 1. Documents: The Aesthetics of Agrarian Reform
  • Chapter 2. Infrastructures: The Aesthetics of Economic Nationalism
  • Chapter 3. Pre-Hispanic Remains: The Aesthetics of Monumental Reconstruction
  • Chapter 4. Photographs: The Aesthetics of Indigenismo
  • Epilogue: Reconfiguring Dissent
  • Notes
  • Bibliography
  • Index

View full details