A City on a Lake

"For Mexicanists, political historians, urban historians, and historians of planning, I suspect, Vitz’s emphasis on the politics of planning and what it reveals about the Porfiriato, the revolution, and the Cárdenas years will be well placed."

-- John R. McNeill * H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews *
"Matthew Vitz's work is a valuable and enjoyable contribution to a growing literature that takes seriously the way Mexico City's lacustrine past shapes its present." -- C. Lurtz * Choice *
"The book will appeal to several audiences. Environmental historians of Latin America will appreciate the new approach through political ecology to an often-discussed region. Because the book outlines Mexican history from the perspective of its national capital in a clear accessible . . . manner, the topic may appeal to historians interested in a comparative approach in urban history. Water historians, meanwhile, will appreciate how the author acknowledges the social, cultural, and political influences that shape water management." -- Rocio Gomez * Canadian Journal of History *
"Seldom are the city and hinterland, technocratic elites and popular groups, studied together – in Mexico or elsewhere – so Matthew Vitz’s work is a tremendous contribution to the field of Latin American urban history and the history of urban planning. In the case of A City on a Lake, this integration is accomplished through widespread archival research and a sophisticated analytical lens that links the histories of capitalism, urbanization, and the environment. Historians of Mexico will surely profit from this approach." -- Emilio de Antanuano * Planning Perspectives *
"Vitz draws from a rich collection of archival sources to illustrate a metropolis caught between a growing population extracting more and more resources from a still-viable ecosystem and a government increasingly run by technocrats. . . . Given current global concerns about climate change, A City on a Lake is a welcome and valuable addition to environmental histories of Latin America and the world, as well as the history of inequality, which cannot be divorced from ecological perspectives." -- James A. Garza * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *
"A City on a Lake is an innovative and complex study of the social, political, and environmental dynamics of Mexico City’s demographic and spatial expansion from the Porfiriato (1876–1911) through the middle of the twentieth century. . . . A meticulously sourced and theoretically grounded study that will likely be influential across several academic fields." -- Christopher Woolley * The Latin Americanist *
"In this deeply researched and nicely detailed book, Vitz makes important contributions to the environmental and especially urban history of Latin America." -- Emily Wakild * Journal of Social History *
"[This] book would make for an excellent text to assign to advanced undergraduates. It deserves to find a much wider readership than that, though. This impressive, sophisticated analysis will be of considerable interest to historians and geographers, in particular, and will appeal to scholars interested in the politics." -- Richard Conway * HAHR *
"A City on a Lake is a very detailed environmental history which will speak more to Mexicanists and environmental historians. . . . the book is a superb example of urban political ecological analysis which transcends the boundaries of the city to examine the complex interactions between the city and its non-urban hinterlands. In this regard, A City on a Lake can contribute to recent debates on planetary urbanization within urban political ecology." -- Creighton Connolly * International Journal of Urban and Regional Research *
"Matthew Vitz’s book, A City on a Lake, is a thoroughly researched and intricately woven history of environmental change in Mexico City from the last decades of the nineteenth century to the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution. . . . Vitz’s argument is articulated through richly described data, which vividly conveys the complexity of urban environmentmaking." -- Alejandro de Coss Corzo * Journal of Latin American Studies *
"A major contribution to Mexican political historiography that unpacks the fascinating and complex story of a revolutionary nation whose capital city happens to sit on a lake. ... This remarkable book will likewise fuel debates in the larger field of radical political ecology, precisely be-cause it supports the claim that states matter as much as capital in any theoretical or analytical accounting of urbanization-led environmental change. In masterfully weaving multiple conceptual and disciplinary threads into a single convincing account, this must-read book will force a rethinking of new and old assumptions in a variety of fields. One could not ask for more." -- Diane E. Davis * Environmental History *
"This book is a meticulously researched account of the production and reproduction of Mexico City’s 'metropolitan environment' during the long twentieth century, the bulk of which centers on the 1910s through the 1930s. ... Matthew Vitz has written an original, archivally rich analysis that deserves to be read by all those interested in cities past and present." -- J. Brian Freeman * The Americas *
"Vitz makes important contributions to histories of the Mexican Revolution and state formation. . .. Vitz is to be commended for his ability to integrate the ecological, social, and political dimensions of cities and their hinterlands into an engaging narrative." -- Denisa Jashari * Latin American Research Revi