num_pages: 346
description: At once intimate and wide-ranging and as enthralling surprising and vivid as the place itself this is a uniquely eye-opening tour of one of the great metropolises of the world and its largest Spanish-speaking city. Horizontal Vertigo: The title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes that led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur Juan Villoro wanders through Mexico City seemingly without a plan describing people places and things while brilliantly drawing connections among them. In so doing he reveals in all its multitudinous glory the vicissitudes and triumphs of the city s cultural political and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City todayone of the worlds leading cultural and financial centers. In this deeply iconoclastic book Villoro organizes his text around a recurring series of topics: Living in the City City Characters Shocks Crossings and Ceremonies. What he achieves miraculously is a stunning intriguingly coherent meditation on Mexico Citys genius loci its spirit of place.
language: English
title: Horizontal Vertigo: A City Called Mexico
publisher: Pantheon