WIN $150 GIFT VOUCHERS: ALADDIN'S GOLD

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Death and the Idea of Mexico by Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University) at Abbey's Bookshop,
Death and the Idea of Mexico
— —
Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University)

Death and the Idea of Mexico

Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University)

$68.95   $61.86

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?
English
Zone Books
13 March 2008
Sociology: death & dying
Series: Death and the Idea of Mexico
The history of Mexico's fearless intimacy with death-the elevation of death to the center of national identity.

Death and the Idea of Mexico is the first social, cultural, and political history of death in a nation that has made death its tutelary sign. Examining the history of death and of the death sign from sixteenth-century holocaust to contemporary Mexican-American identity politics, anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz's innovative study marks a turning point in understanding Mexico's rich and unique use of death imagery. Unlike contemporary Europeans and Americans, whose denial of death permeates their cultures, the Mexican people display and cultivate a jovial familiarity with death. This intimacy with death has become the cornerstone of Mexico's national identity. Death and Idea of Mexico focuses on the dialectical relationship between dying, killing, and the administration of death, and the very formation of the colonial state, of a rich and variegated popular culture, and of the Mexican nation itself. The elevation of Mexican intimacy with death to the center of national identity is but a moment within that history-within a history in which the key institutions of society are built around the claims of the fallen. Based on a stunning range of sources-from missionary testimonies to newspaper cartoons, from masterpieces of artistic vanguards to accounts of public executions and political assassinations-Death and the Idea of Mexico moves beyond the limited methodology of traditional historiographies of death to probe the depths of a people and a country whose fearless acquaintance with death shapes the very terms of its social compact.
By:  
Imprint:   Zone Books
Country of Publication:   United States
Edition:   1
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 38mm
Weight:   862g
ISBN:   9781890951542
ISBN 10:   1890951544
Series:   Death and the Idea of Mexico
Pages:   584
Publication Date:  
Recommended Age:   From 18
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Further / Higher Education
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Claudio Lomnitz is Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University. He is the author of Death and the Idea of Mexico (Zone Books); Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism; and Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in the Mexican Space.

Reviews for Death and the Idea of Mexico

Lomnitz's masterful Death and the Idea of Mexico places him in the company of Octavio Paz and Carlos Monsivais as both critic and champion of Mexico culture. This study of death makes Mexico come alive. William H. Beezley Bookforum Easily ranks as the most sophisticated, well-documented, and thought-provoking treatment of Mexico's unique national totem. American Historical Review Death and the Idea of Mexico is, in every sense, a stunning volume... Lomnitz has produced a magisterial work of enormous depth, sensitivity, and scope. Its scholarly value will endure for decades, all the more so because it is written in a thoroughly accessible, at times lyrical, style. American Ethnologist


See Also

Death and the Idea of Mexico

The Final Leap

Suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge...

John Bateson

Hardback

$49.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Death and the Idea of Mexico

The Afterlife of Data

What Happens to Your Information...

Carl Öhman

Hardback

$36.95 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Death and the Idea of Mexico

Death and Funeral Practices in Portugal...

Rafaela Ferraz Ferreira

Paperback

$52.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Death and the Idea of Mexico

We all know how this ends

Lessons about life and living from...

Anna Lyons

Paperback

$32.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Death and the Idea of Mexico

Inheritance and the Right to Bequeath...

Legal and Philosophical Perspectives...

Hans-Christoph Schmidt am Busch...

Paperback

$83.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +
Death and the Idea of Mexico

In My Time of Dying

How I Came Face to Face with the...

Sebastian Junger

Hardback

$34.99 

Not in-store but you can order this

ADD +