The history of Mexico City is monumental, like Our Lady of Guadalupe that watches over the city. That's because time, people, and cultures have never stopped intermixing there.
In the 1920s, as the first skyscrapers rose up, art, cinema and revolution rendezvoused in the city. Eisenstein discovered the land of Zapata and shared his passion in ¡Que viva México!. Trotsky took refuge in La Casa Azul where Frida Kahlo beguiled André Breton, and Graham Greene admired on the murales the rural teachers dressed in white with pious apostolic faces. For a long time artists, scientists, actors, and adventurers flocked to this American Venice where another world awaited them. The author tells the story of Mexico City in reverse, from the chaos of a global metropolis to the rise of the imperial Aztec city of Tenochtitlan.
Serge Gruzinski is Research Director at the National Scientific Research Center (CNRS, Paris) and Director of Studies at EHESS. He is also a visiting professor at Princeton University, and author of numerous books including The Conquest of Mexico and Images at War: From Columbus to Blade Runner.