Intelligent Design Creationism and Its Critics

Death and the Idea of Mexico is the first social, cultural, and political history ofdeath in a nation that has made death its tutelary sign. Examining the history of death and of thedeath sign from sixteenth-century holocaust to contemporary Mexican-American identity politics,anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz's innovative study marks a turning point in understanding Mexico'srich and unique use of death imagery. Unlike contemporary Europeans and Americans, whose denial ofdeath permeates their cultures, the Mexican people display and cultivate a jovial familiarity withdeath. This intimacy with death has become the cornerstone of Mexico's national identity.Death andIdea of Mexico focuses on the dialectical relationship between dying, killing, and theadministration of death, and the very formation of the colonial state, of a rich and variegatedpopular culture, and of the Mexican nation itself. The elevation of Mexican intimacy with death tothe center of national identity is but a moment within that history -- within a history in which thekey institutions of society are built around the claims of the fallen.Based on a stunning range ofsources -- from missionary testimonies to newspaper cartoons, from masterpieces of artisticvanguards to accounts of public executions and political assassinations -- Death and the Idea ofMexico moves beyond the limited methodology of traditional historiographies of death to probe thedepths of a people and a country whose fearless acquaintance with death shapes the very terms of itssocial compact.

Claudio Lomnitz is Distinguished University Professor of Anthropology and Historical Studies at the New School University. He is the author of Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in Mexican National Space and Deep Mexico, Silent Mexico: An Anthropology of Nationalism.