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La Capital: The Biography of Mexico City
From the ancient geological rumblings that formed the city's unique setting to the recent tremors that devastated the city in 1985, the capital's complex story unfolds. The countless individuals, both famous and unknown, who shaped Mexico' history come alive . . . they prosper, decline, and rise again before being extinguished by political and social upheavals beyond their control.
640 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 10, 2019
This book fundamentally changed how I see Mexico and Mexicans - it's one of the best history books I've ever read. La Capital lays out the epic saga of Mexico City that stretches across a millennia from the pre-Aztec civilizations vying for control of the valley to the modern megalopolis that dominates the country's landscape. Throughout, we learn just how unlikely that history actually is, from the underdog story of the Aztecs to the totally insane gambits of Cortes to the bizarre reign of Maximilian and the endless civil wars. I wish Kandall would write a biography of every city - his pitch-perfect combination of historical detail and vibrant narration made this book fly by.
October 26, 2025
Me tomó demasiadisimo leerlo pero valió la pena. Sentí que viajé entre la historia de mi país, en todos su mátices: sociales, políticos, culturales entre otros. Lo que más destaco es que tiene un discurso muy anticolonialista, mencionando las consecuencias e injusticias que vivieron las comunidades originarias.
November 8, 2025
One of the best history books I’ve ever read, and a must-read for anyone going to Mexico City or wanting to generally know more about the history of Mexico. Incredibly well-written and engaging. A shame that it’s out of print.
May 15, 2026
La Capital: The Biography of Mexico City (1988) is an outstanding panoramic history of the Mexican nation told through the development of its urban core and capital, Mexico City. In this remarkably expansive yet lucid narrative, Jonathan Kandell—an itinerant journalist and longtime foreign correspondent—situates the city at the center of Mexico’s cyclical historical development, evoking patterns reminiscent of Aztec cosmology itself. From the earliest human settlements in the Valley of Mexico to the rapid economic modernization of the mid-twentieth century, Kandell uncovers a history that, in his words, “matches the city’s monumentality.”
Kandell begins with the earliest periods of human settlement in the Valley of Mexico, where the lack of natural drainage and the convergence of multiple ecological zones created habitable conditions favorable to civilization. Irrigation transformed tribal societies into sedentary agricultural communities organized under centralized and increasingly autocratic states. Complex civilizations soon emerged, leveraging hydraulic agriculture, urbanization, and state terror to consolidate power. By the mid-fifteenth century, Tenochtitlán—located on the site of present-day Mexico City—had become the thriving center of the Aztec Empire, providing broad economic integration and military security across much of Mesoamerica. When Hernán Cortés and the Spanish first arrived in the early sixteenth century, Kandell describes the city as a vast metropolis of more than 200,000 inhabitants, several times larger than any city in Spain at the time.
The Spanish conquest plunged this civilization into catastrophe. Disease, forced labor, livestock grazing, and ecological destruction devastated the indigenous population, while the encomienda system institutionalized exploitation. By 1650, Kandell notes that only about 70,000 natives remained in the Valley of Mexico, compared to well over one million prior to the conquest. Yet colonial rule also transformed New Spain into a commercial nexus within an emerging global economy. Silver discoveries in the hinterlands vaulted Mexico into the center of international trade networks. Silver became the colony’s “uncontested source of wealth, power, and status,” enriching a new conquistador elite while supplying the Spanish Crown with immense tax revenues. The influx of Spanish migrants swelled the colonial aristocracy, while racial admixture became increasingly common, producing a vast and complex caste hierarchy. The Catholic Church emerged as perhaps the colony’s most powerful institution, acting simultaneously as lender, landholder, educator, and spiritual authority. Together, these developments sowed the rivalries and social tensions that would later define Mexico’s political upheavals.
The Bourbon reforms of the eighteenth century intensified centralized royal rule, expanded tax collection, and curtailed ecclesiastical power. Mexico City accumulated extraordinary wealth, becoming, in Alexander von Humboldt’s words, “one of the finest cities ever built by Europeans in either hemisphere.” Yet prosperity sharpened social inequality. The gulf between elite and poor widened as white immigration increased and urban wealth concentrated in the capital. These divisions eventually contributed to the crisis of imperial rule. Rural insurgencies led by the priest-warriors Hidalgo and Morelos challenged Spanish authority, while creole elites and clerical conservatives alike recoiled against Bourbon liberalization. Economic decline compounded political unrest: by the early nineteenth century, income levels in Mexico City had fallen by more than one-third, with the burden falling disproportionately on the urban poor.
The crises of independence produced a new ruling class of military officers, caudillos, and entrepreneurs who struggled to stabilize the fledgling nation. Kandell characterizes post-independence Mexico City as “marked by an instability and corruption unequaled in the country’s history.” Conservatives and liberals battled over whether Mexico should preserve or repudiate the legacy of colonial society. Civil war followed. Benito Juárez, whom Kandell favorably compares to Abraham Lincoln for his legalism, reformism, and historical consciousness, eventually succeeded in expelling the French-backed monarchy by 1867. The subsequent rise of Porfirio Díaz, whom Kandell describes as “a man of impeccable liberal reformist credentials,” inaugurated a long period of political order and economic modernization. Under the “Porfiriato,” Mexico City entered a new gilded age. The capital absorbed more than 80 percent of all government infrastructure investment, resulting in expanded railroads, electrification, telegraph systems, roads, and drainage works. Mexico City became synonymous with “political power, wealth, urbanity, and cosmopolitan glitter,” towering over the provinces economically and culturally.
Kandell also shows the persistent inequality that lay beneath this modernization. Most Mexicans remained impoverished and landless, tied to exploitative agrarian labor systems. Urban workers lived in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. By 1910, Mexico City had become “the most unhealthy urban center on earth,” with mortality rates ranked among the highest in the world and a life expectancy of only twenty-four. These conditions helped fuel the Mexican Revolution, which transformed the capital into a battleground marked by famine, refugees, and perpetual violence. “Scourged by famine and scarred by battles,” Mexico City developed what Kandell calls a “siege mentality.” Competing revolutionary armies and warlords shattered national stability, while disease and starvation ran rampant. Kandell ultimately describes the Revolution as “a catastrophe unparalleled since the Conquest,” killing more than one million people.
Following the Revolution, Mexico entered a prolonged era of political continuity and economic expansion under the coalition that became the PRI. Reformist presidents pursued land redistribution, labor protections, industrialization, and resource nationalization. Between 1940 and 1970, Mexico City experienced its “golden decades” as a “pulsating, modern metropolis.” National GDP grew by more than six percent annually, driven in large part by explosive growth in the capital itself. By the mid-1960s, Mexico City received more than five times the government investment allocated to all other municipalities combined, and by 1970 the capital produced roughly half of the nation’s industrial output. Yet this unbalanced growth deepened regional disparities and generated new urban crises. Student protests, uncontrolled sprawl, environmental strain, and declining productivity increasingly undermined the optimism of the postwar decades. Mexico City had finally emerged as a global metropolis, but its ascent remained deeply uneven and incomplete.
In sweeping fashion, La Capital captures the full drama of Mexican history through the evolution of its sprawling capital city. Kandell portrays Mexico as a nation shaped by cycles of war, exploitation, disease, social unrest, and political upheaval. Yet Kandell also demonstrates that the story of Mexico City is ultimately one of resilience and continual rebirth. Again and again, the capital emerges from catastrophe transformed, carrying forward its monumental and historic legacy.
Kandell begins with the earliest periods of human settlement in the Valley of Mexico, where the lack of natural drainage and the convergence of multiple ecological zones created habitable conditions favorable to civilization. Irrigation transformed tribal societies into sedentary agricultural communities organized under centralized and increasingly autocratic states. Complex civilizations soon emerged, leveraging hydraulic agriculture, urbanization, and state terror to consolidate power. By the mid-fifteenth century, Tenochtitlán—located on the site of present-day Mexico City—had become the thriving center of the Aztec Empire, providing broad economic integration and military security across much of Mesoamerica. When Hernán Cortés and the Spanish first arrived in the early sixteenth century, Kandell describes the city as a vast metropolis of more than 200,000 inhabitants, several times larger than any city in Spain at the time.
The Spanish conquest plunged this civilization into catastrophe. Disease, forced labor, livestock grazing, and ecological destruction devastated the indigenous population, while the encomienda system institutionalized exploitation. By 1650, Kandell notes that only about 70,000 natives remained in the Valley of Mexico, compared to well over one million prior to the conquest. Yet colonial rule also transformed New Spain into a commercial nexus within an emerging global economy. Silver discoveries in the hinterlands vaulted Mexico into the center of international trade networks. Silver became the colony’s “uncontested source of wealth, power, and status,” enriching a new conquistador elite while supplying the Spanish Crown with immense tax revenues. The influx of Spanish migrants swelled the colonial aristocracy, while racial admixture became increasingly common, producing a vast and complex caste hierarchy. The Catholic Church emerged as perhaps the colony’s most powerful institution, acting simultaneously as lender, landholder, educator, and spiritual authority. Together, these developments sowed the rivalries and social tensions that would later define Mexico’s political upheavals.
The Bourbon reforms of the eighteenth century intensified centralized royal rule, expanded tax collection, and curtailed ecclesiastical power. Mexico City accumulated extraordinary wealth, becoming, in Alexander von Humboldt’s words, “one of the finest cities ever built by Europeans in either hemisphere.” Yet prosperity sharpened social inequality. The gulf between elite and poor widened as white immigration increased and urban wealth concentrated in the capital. These divisions eventually contributed to the crisis of imperial rule. Rural insurgencies led by the priest-warriors Hidalgo and Morelos challenged Spanish authority, while creole elites and clerical conservatives alike recoiled against Bourbon liberalization. Economic decline compounded political unrest: by the early nineteenth century, income levels in Mexico City had fallen by more than one-third, with the burden falling disproportionately on the urban poor.
The crises of independence produced a new ruling class of military officers, caudillos, and entrepreneurs who struggled to stabilize the fledgling nation. Kandell characterizes post-independence Mexico City as “marked by an instability and corruption unequaled in the country’s history.” Conservatives and liberals battled over whether Mexico should preserve or repudiate the legacy of colonial society. Civil war followed. Benito Juárez, whom Kandell favorably compares to Abraham Lincoln for his legalism, reformism, and historical consciousness, eventually succeeded in expelling the French-backed monarchy by 1867. The subsequent rise of Porfirio Díaz, whom Kandell describes as “a man of impeccable liberal reformist credentials,” inaugurated a long period of political order and economic modernization. Under the “Porfiriato,” Mexico City entered a new gilded age. The capital absorbed more than 80 percent of all government infrastructure investment, resulting in expanded railroads, electrification, telegraph systems, roads, and drainage works. Mexico City became synonymous with “political power, wealth, urbanity, and cosmopolitan glitter,” towering over the provinces economically and culturally.
Kandell also shows the persistent inequality that lay beneath this modernization. Most Mexicans remained impoverished and landless, tied to exploitative agrarian labor systems. Urban workers lived in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions. By 1910, Mexico City had become “the most unhealthy urban center on earth,” with mortality rates ranked among the highest in the world and a life expectancy of only twenty-four. These conditions helped fuel the Mexican Revolution, which transformed the capital into a battleground marked by famine, refugees, and perpetual violence. “Scourged by famine and scarred by battles,” Mexico City developed what Kandell calls a “siege mentality.” Competing revolutionary armies and warlords shattered national stability, while disease and starvation ran rampant. Kandell ultimately describes the Revolution as “a catastrophe unparalleled since the Conquest,” killing more than one million people.
Following the Revolution, Mexico entered a prolonged era of political continuity and economic expansion under the coalition that became the PRI. Reformist presidents pursued land redistribution, labor protections, industrialization, and resource nationalization. Between 1940 and 1970, Mexico City experienced its “golden decades” as a “pulsating, modern metropolis.” National GDP grew by more than six percent annually, driven in large part by explosive growth in the capital itself. By the mid-1960s, Mexico City received more than five times the government investment allocated to all other municipalities combined, and by 1970 the capital produced roughly half of the nation’s industrial output. Yet this unbalanced growth deepened regional disparities and generated new urban crises. Student protests, uncontrolled sprawl, environmental strain, and declining productivity increasingly undermined the optimism of the postwar decades. Mexico City had finally emerged as a global metropolis, but its ascent remained deeply uneven and incomplete.
In sweeping fashion, La Capital captures the full drama of Mexican history through the evolution of its sprawling capital city. Kandell portrays Mexico as a nation shaped by cycles of war, exploitation, disease, social unrest, and political upheaval. Yet Kandell also demonstrates that the story of Mexico City is ultimately one of resilience and continual rebirth. Again and again, the capital emerges from catastrophe transformed, carrying forward its monumental and historic legacy.
February 26, 2013
Combined with a trip to Mexico City, La Capital was the most enthralling book I've read in years. Unfortunately, it has not been reprinted but I found it in my city library. Our sister country to the south is introduced to us by a noted author and journalist who grew up in its suburbs. The book reads like a mystery presenting a most frightening and exciting record of human endeavor.
Did you know: Just over our border to the south, the Indian state fed a million of people with their own method of watering the plants with island plots built into the three shallow lakes that originally covered what we now call a valley. They had methods to protect their water supply; their infrastructure worked. Two aqueducts provided fresh water, to neighborhoods and to the homes of the ruling class. Boy, what a 1% they had. Methods for keeping the commoners and other tribal factions controlled are diabolical and effective. Even the blood and gore was carried out on an extravagant scale.
The next part of the book describes the Mexican capitol when it was the richest city in the world, its lakes drained by the Spaniards. It was a time When 7 sailing ships left Acupulco for Manila every year to bring back the high end products of the East. Many more trading vessels left Veracruz for Europe for proper clothes, jewelry, etc. for the 1%. Again the 1%, now Spanish, lived large and the rest worked and died.
Finally our author describes the incredibly complicated Revolutionary impetus that brought Mexico City into the twentieth century. I had to read this part in small doses as the book describes the assassinations, constant double cross and vengeance that ensued.
The notes and sources give credibility to an almost unbelievable rendition. Take a look at the bibliography from pages 577 to 595 sourcing Incredibly complicated story lines not just hinted at but carefully explained.
Did you know: Just over our border to the south, the Indian state fed a million of people with their own method of watering the plants with island plots built into the three shallow lakes that originally covered what we now call a valley. They had methods to protect their water supply; their infrastructure worked. Two aqueducts provided fresh water, to neighborhoods and to the homes of the ruling class. Boy, what a 1% they had. Methods for keeping the commoners and other tribal factions controlled are diabolical and effective. Even the blood and gore was carried out on an extravagant scale.
The next part of the book describes the Mexican capitol when it was the richest city in the world, its lakes drained by the Spaniards. It was a time When 7 sailing ships left Acupulco for Manila every year to bring back the high end products of the East. Many more trading vessels left Veracruz for Europe for proper clothes, jewelry, etc. for the 1%. Again the 1%, now Spanish, lived large and the rest worked and died.
Finally our author describes the incredibly complicated Revolutionary impetus that brought Mexico City into the twentieth century. I had to read this part in small doses as the book describes the assassinations, constant double cross and vengeance that ensued.
The notes and sources give credibility to an almost unbelievable rendition. Take a look at the bibliography from pages 577 to 595 sourcing Incredibly complicated story lines not just hinted at but carefully explained.
February 8, 2010
Un orgullo que esta majestuosa ciudad pueda despertar el profundo interés de un extranjero para poder presentarnos una completísima biografía de la misma. Un lamento que sea un extranjero el que se haya avocado a escribir este magnífico trabajo. Desde los orígenes lacustres, la llegada de los aztecas, su imperio, hasta curiosas e interesantes anécdotas de sus habitantes en la colonia, reforma, revolución (no olviden subrayar el pasaje de los zapatistas balaceando un carro de bomberos en el zócalo). Un excelente regalo para cualquiera que ame a esta ciudad, a pesar de sus pesares.
August 8, 2011
Hard Read. BUT, the history of Mexico City is amazing. For example, did you know the Aztecs practiced cannibalism as their primary protein supply, or that they sacrificed humans by the thousands. Or how about that Mexican silver coins were once so prevalent that they become a standard currency throughout the world, even in China.
I picked this up after spending a week in Mexico City and finally got around to reading it.
I picked this up after spending a week in Mexico City and finally got around to reading it.
March 25, 2020
Written in the tradition of Hawaii by J.Mitchener, J.Kandell makes a profound and accurate depiction of one of the biggest and most intriguing places in the world, Mexico City. I do hope he picks up where he ended it and takes us to ignore Covid-19 in 2020...
Great read. Interesting, educative, fascinating account...
Great read. Interesting, educative, fascinating account...
July 24, 2023
The story of the Valley of Mexico or Mexico City is the story of Mexico. In this biography of Mexico City Kandell gives a rich, anecdotal account of the settling of the Valley of Mexico and the foundation of Mexico City by the Olmecs. The key to growth of the city was irrigation. Next the Toltecs invaded from the north and finally the Aztecs take over in the 1500s. They consolidated power and set up a centralized government. By 1450 there were over 70,000 people living there where class distinctions emerged; nobles, warriors, laborers, and farmers. By the early 1500’s there were over 400,000 people living there. Many rebellions by neighboring peoples were put down when the Spaniards arrived. They brought not only new technology of warfare but germs which killed more people than guns. This made it easier for the Spaniards to conquer and build a European style city on the ruins of the Aztecs. Mexico City was built on top of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan using destroyed pyramids as building blocks. Indians were enslaved to do work and African slaves were imported as well. The mining of silver brought many immigrants from Europe. The drainage of the lake, and deforestation was the beginning of environmental problems for the city. With textile factories emerging so did a wealthy class that acquired large plots of land. They were able to dominate the markets and survive both floods and droughts. With seasonal unemployment many people lived in poverty which eventually led to rebellions in the rural regions. Numerous conflicts ensued: rural vs. urban, church vs. state, rich vs. poor, liberal vs. conservative. All of these factors were involved in a brutal civil war. With strong military leaders emerging the war ended but living conditions remained bad for many people. One result was the increase in corruption in numerous areas of business, government, and the church. Criminal activity increased as gangs emerged. Kandell also describes the development of slums and corruption in the garbage and police areas. Cultural activities grew in the 1930s through the 1970s. Kandell has the ability to delve into short biographies of people who contributed to the story of Mexico City whether they be leaders, rebels, or cultural icons like Diego Rivera. Kandell explains the “Golden Era” of Mexico City (1940s - 1970s), and explains how political parties became powerful and lasting to this day, such as PRI. The last part of the book tells about riots and earthquakes that occurred in the 1960s and 1980s respectively. Interestingly, the occupation of Mexico City and what happened there after the Mexican - American War is glossed over. This is a well researched and well written book not only about Mexico City but Mexico in general. One of the best books I have read on Mexico.
February 12, 2026
Really great book if flawed/dated a bit. An update on the last nearly 40 years of the city would be welcome and I'd read anything written on it.
According to the author, Fernand Braudel advised him on historical methodology which is sick because Braudel is the goated historian, but the book lacks the Braudelian methods I've come to love. A bit too much focus on individuals (esp in the latter half of the book (diego rivera and irma serrano come to mind)).
The book does a good job bouncing between the political history of CDMX (and by extension the rest of flexico) and the more mundane municipal goings-on of the city, going all the way back to the ancient inhabitants of the valley of sexico.
This book was published in 1990 (and i wager completed around 1988 because it makes no mention of the near fall of PRI to cuauhtemoc cardenas) and doesn't really imagine a mexico without PRI. I'd like to read more stuff about the downfall of the party and its relegation to a afterthought in the present-day political arena of mexico.
This book does make me pretty optimistic, though. By the end of the book, the author can seemingly not imagine a CDMX clear of smog, and thinks that the population will keep on ballooning and overcrowding to oblivion. As it happens, the smog is pretty much gone (didn't see any when I visited a few years ago, made sure to check the air quality), and the population of greater CDMX has stabilized at about 20 million, which was the population at the time of publication. I'm sure the city has oodles of problems (cost of living gets the most attention in the press), but it is far from the hellhole kandell describes at the end of this book. Maybe we have the downfall of PRI to thank for that.
Also, about PRI, this book recontextualized the mexican revolution for me. While I was always fascinated by it as a historical event, my impression (as is many others) was that it wasn't all that revolutionary. Boy, was I wrong. The revolution was utterly transformative for all of Mexican society. Sure, the elite stayed elite, but they had a greater obligation to the poor and landless. Also, the Mexico we know now is continuous with the Mexico since 1920. The Mexico before that was always going through changes and could hardly be considered a consistent country or system. For all the flaws Mexico has, it has an extant and respected political system. That is not nothing.
Good book
According to the author, Fernand Braudel advised him on historical methodology which is sick because Braudel is the goated historian, but the book lacks the Braudelian methods I've come to love. A bit too much focus on individuals (esp in the latter half of the book (diego rivera and irma serrano come to mind)).
The book does a good job bouncing between the political history of CDMX (and by extension the rest of flexico) and the more mundane municipal goings-on of the city, going all the way back to the ancient inhabitants of the valley of sexico.
This book was published in 1990 (and i wager completed around 1988 because it makes no mention of the near fall of PRI to cuauhtemoc cardenas) and doesn't really imagine a mexico without PRI. I'd like to read more stuff about the downfall of the party and its relegation to a afterthought in the present-day political arena of mexico.
This book does make me pretty optimistic, though. By the end of the book, the author can seemingly not imagine a CDMX clear of smog, and thinks that the population will keep on ballooning and overcrowding to oblivion. As it happens, the smog is pretty much gone (didn't see any when I visited a few years ago, made sure to check the air quality), and the population of greater CDMX has stabilized at about 20 million, which was the population at the time of publication. I'm sure the city has oodles of problems (cost of living gets the most attention in the press), but it is far from the hellhole kandell describes at the end of this book. Maybe we have the downfall of PRI to thank for that.
Also, about PRI, this book recontextualized the mexican revolution for me. While I was always fascinated by it as a historical event, my impression (as is many others) was that it wasn't all that revolutionary. Boy, was I wrong. The revolution was utterly transformative for all of Mexican society. Sure, the elite stayed elite, but they had a greater obligation to the poor and landless. Also, the Mexico we know now is continuous with the Mexico since 1920. The Mexico before that was always going through changes and could hardly be considered a consistent country or system. For all the flaws Mexico has, it has an extant and respected political system. That is not nothing.
Good book
July 3, 2023
Un muy buen libro para aprender sobre la historia de la Ciudad de México. Como está narrado de forma cronológica, es sencillo de seguir. Está plagado de anécdotas y personajes históricos desmitificados. Ya que la edición que leí es de 1988, falta mucha información actualizada, sin embargo sí creo que me ayudó a conocer más acerca de la historia de la Ciudad de México y por ende también del país. Sí lo recomendaría. Fue un libro largo, pero apasionante de leer.
June 25, 2022
Highly recommend if you are traveling to Mexico City.
July 12, 2022
Great book to read before and during a trip to Mexico City. I learned a lot.
February 11, 2025
Brilliant
March 7, 2024
El autor proporciona datos muy interesantes sobre la formación de México, sin embargo en algunas ocasiones pierde objetividad cuando toca las fibras históricas que se comparten en nuestras escuelas mexicanas, datos verificados en los anales de nuestros monumentos y zonas arqueológicas.
November 9, 2008
So far this has been facinating. I'm wishing I'd started it a little earlier so I could be a more knowledgeable guide for all the guests we've had.
Nov. '08
Finished this last month, on our flight to India actually. I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was well written, so that it held my interest, just detailed enough for a survey. I thought the first few chapters the most interesting, though the revolution piece was also facinating. I found the author a bit sentimental when writing about events that occured in his own lifetime. And it could stand a more recently written epiloge, since I think things have changed for the better in Mexico City since it was written.
Overall, a great intro to Mexican History.
Nov. '08
Finished this last month, on our flight to India actually. I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was well written, so that it held my interest, just detailed enough for a survey. I thought the first few chapters the most interesting, though the revolution piece was also facinating. I found the author a bit sentimental when writing about events that occured in his own lifetime. And it could stand a more recently written epiloge, since I think things have changed for the better in Mexico City since it was written.
Overall, a great intro to Mexican History.
January 6, 2009
It's a hefty tome, but worth reading if you're at all interested in Mexico and its history. A fast tour of the city from prehistory to about 1980, and along the way you'll meet brilliant and bloodthirsty Aztecs, hideous conquistadors, revolutionaries, literary bright lights, mistresses of presidents and a lot more. I'll never think of painter Diego Rivera quite the same way again after reading his (surely invented)accounts of cannibalism and its salutory effect on his art!)
For a look at current day Mexico City, there's First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century Also terrific.
For a look at current day Mexico City, there's First Stop in the New World: Mexico City, the Capital of the 21st Century Also terrific.
February 8, 2015
i found this book fascinating. the history of mexico city is a long and splendid one and it is great to see it finally come together in a single volume. the detail from pre-columbian times is a pleasure to read.
December 24, 2021
Seemed solid to me, but I'll say that a lot of the book seems to be history of the country as a whole, which was fine by me since I didn't know it too well, but might be tedious for someone better versed.
March 23, 2010
Solid historical review/overview so far. WIsh there were about a hundred more photos/illustration/visual reference to go along with the handful in the middle.
March 24, 2016
Vale mucho la pena,.la historia de la Ciudad de México desde su formación geológica hasta los tiempos modernos
August 30, 2017
This is an excellent history of Mexico.
February 2, 2022
So glad to know more about CDMX, and the country as a whole!
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews