Este libro reúne trece ensayos (diez de los ensayos de este libro fueron escritos originalmente en inglés; el resto en espanol), y un bonus ensayo, sobre México en la era del neoliberalismo y la globalización, mancomunando temas que van desde Ayotzinapa, Mamá Rosa, Oscar Lewis, el sismo del 1985, Octavio Paz, las repetidas crisis económicas, Carlos Chávez, y Memín Pinguín, entre otras
"Death and the Idea of Mexico is the first social, cultural, and political history of death in a nation that has made death its tutelary sign. Examining the history of death and of the death sign from sixteenth-century holocaust to contemporary Mexican-American identity politics, anthropologist Claudio Lomnitz's innovative study marks a turning point in understanding Mexico's rich and unique use of death imagery. Unlike contemporary Europeans and Americans, whose denial of death permeates their cultures, the Mexican people display and cultivate a jovial familiarity with death. This intimacy with death has become the cornerstone of Mexico's national identity." "Based on a stunning range of sources - from missionary testimonies to newspaper cartoons, from masterpieces of artistic vanguards to accounts of public executions and political assassinations - Death and the Idea of Mexico moves beyond the limited methodology of traditional historiographies of death to probe the depths of a people and a country whose fearless acquaintance with death shapes the very terms of its social compact."--Jacket