Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico

[Jolly's] thorough study on the Mexican town of Pátzcuaro reveals just how constructed geographic identities are through an attention to the players and politics involved in promotional projects...Jolly’s study reminds us that when we visit a charming colonial town or a rustic Indigenous village market, we enter spaces that have been extensively edited, that are anything but natural or neutral...While Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico provides a compelling way of understanding modern Mexico, its approach is of value for implementation elsewhere in Latin America and beyond...While complex and nuanced in its articulation, this book reminds us of something quite simple: that images and spaces in the service of statecraft wield incredible power, but this power remains open to negotiation and contestation. * Latin American and Latinx Visual Culture *
Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico is a much welcomed addition to Mexican regional history…[Jolly] brings to light how the periphery informed nation-state building. * The Public Historian *
Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico makes important contributions to our understanding of 1930s Mexico, tourism development, art history, and the role of cultural policy in nation building. The book is essential for scholars interested in these fields and accessible for graduate and advanced undergraduate students. * Hispanic American Historical Review *
A fascinating journey into art and tourism in Pátzcuaro...a welcome contribution to our understanding of regional art institutions and monuments, the interdisciplinary study of Mexican nation- and region-formation during the 1930s, and most importantly, the emergence of domestic tourism in postrevolutionary Mexico. * The Americas *
Jolly's acute book is successful in giving us a comprehensive view of the mechanisms by which the image of Pátzcuaro was created through a process of power engineering...Creating Pátzcuaro, Creating Mexico demonstrates how history, art, and tourism can be combined and serve as a technology of governance. * caa.reviews *
Through her consideration of visual culture, Jolly links the regional to the national (and the national to the regional), and thus effectively illuminates the ways in which the molding of Pátzcuaro's local identity contributed to Mexico's nation building overall. Jolly offers a significant study, but her colorful discussion of Pátzcuaro's art, murals, architecture, and streets ensure a lively read as well. * American Historical Review *
As a compelling account of the creation of a particular historical and cultural narrative for Pátzcuaro in the context of building a national Mexican identity, Jolly's book constitutes both an excellent scholarly contribution and a fascinating and insightful story well worth reading. * Monthly Review *
[A] magisterial study of cultural patronage and the construction of regional identity in Pátzcuaro...one of the most interesting new books on the history of modern Mexican art to appear in the past several years...It will long stand as the definitive account of this particular time and place...Jolly’s book sets a high bar for future scholars who seek to excavate the histories of these and other sites, where regional differences remain resilient, notwithstanding the forces of industrialisation and globalisation. * Bulletin of Latin American Research *
Jolly’s study makes a useful contribution to research on and understanding of postrevolutionary nation-building and tourism in terms of the immense ideological power of public art, memorials, monuments and statues in Mexico. * Journal of Latin American Geography *
[A] wonderful book…Richly illustrated...Jolly skillfully highlights the connections between the regional and the national…[and] skillfully interrogates elite ideas about Indians and race as Pátzcuaro’s indigenous past and present were propped up as tourist attractions. * Latin American Research Review *