Horizontal Vertigo

Mexico City grew sideways instead of upward because its residents have long dreaded earthquakes. Juan Villoro, a Mexican writer, explores this sprawling metropolis in a loosely wandering way, noting its people, streets and objects and linking them together as he goes. Along the way he traces the city's past, from its indigenous origins and the Aztec era through the Spanish conquest to its present role as one of the world's major cultural and financial hubs, showing how cultural, political and social forces have shaped it. The book is organized around recurring themes: daily life in the city, the characters who inhabit it, and the upheavals and rituals that mark it. Rather than a conventional chronology, it reads as an unconventional, closely observed reflection on the character and identity of Mexico City.