An absorbing historical analysis of how Mexicans living in Oaxaca City experienced "modernity" during the lengthy "Order and Progress" dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911)

Visions of the Emerald City is an absorbing historical analysis of how Mexicans living in Oaxaca City experienced “modernity” during the lengthy “Order and Progress” dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1876–1911). Renowned as the Emerald City (for its many buildings made of green cantera stone), Oaxaca City was not only the economic, political, and cultural capital of the state of Oaxaca but also a vital commercial hub for all of southern Mexico. As such, it was a showcase for many of Díaz’s modernizing and state-building projects. Drawing on in-depth research in archives in Oaxaca, Mexico City, and the United States, Mark Overmyer-Velázquez describes how Oaxacans, both elites and commoners, crafted and manipulated practices of tradition and modernity to define themselves and their city as integral parts of a modern Mexico.

Incorporating a nuanced understanding of visual culture into his analysis, Overmyer-Velázquez shows how ideas of modernity figured in Oaxacans’ ideologies of class, race, gender, sexuality, and religion and how they were expressed in Oaxaca City’s streets, plazas, buildings, newspapers, and public rituals. He pays particular attention to the roles of national and regional elites, the Catholic church, and popular groups—such as Oaxaca City’s madams and prostitutes—in shaping the discourses and practices of modernity. At the same time, he illuminates the dynamic interplay between these groups. Ultimately, this well-illustrated history provides insight into provincial life in pre-Revolutionary Mexico and challenges any easy distinctions between the center and the periphery or modernity and tradition.

"“[T]he book provides an excellent picture of the fragmented and contested visions of modernity that emerged in the city of Oaxaca. It is a contribution to a growing body of literature on the history of regional cities and a welcome addition to the historiography of modern Mexico.”" - American Historical Review

"“Interesting and well written, this book makes a significant contribution to the study of Porfirian Oaxaca, while also transcending its geographic and temporal limits to lend insight into the ongoing global process of modernization.”" - Hispanic American Historical Review

"“This is an empirically rich and methodologically suggestive work. As well as contributing importantly to Mexican urban historiography, Overmyer-Velázquez shows how the idea of modernity itself is unsettled by attentive readings of the historical record in a place like Oaxaca City. . . . It is, in sum, an excellent and original contribution to Mexican historiography and should provoke further research on the intersection of visual studies and history.”" - EIAL

"“Visions of the Emerald City makes a significant contribution to the historiography of the Porfiriato. . . . Overmyer-Velázquez provides a reinterpretation of the Porfiriato and the reasons for the Revolution that should have scholars looking at more cultural explanations for the outbreak of war in Mexico in 1910 . . . . His analysis of Porfirian Oaxaca is solid and innovative. . . . The case he makes for Oaxaca’s cultural history in the Porfiriato stands out from other regional studies already published.”" - The Latin Americanist