Horizontal Vertigo

"Horizontal Vertigo: the title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes, which led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant fla neur, Villoro wanders through the city seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things, while brilliantly drawing connections among them, the better to reveal, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of Mexico City's cultural, political, and social history: from indigenous antiquity to the Aztec period, from the Spanish conquest to Mexico City today, one…