This article analyzes an individual, a context, and an experience. The individual is the photographer and filmmaker Paul Strand, widely recognized and occasionally criticized as one of the great modernist photographers of the twentieth century. The context is Mexico from 1932-34. In these years, Strand worked in Mexico amidst state-led efforts to construct a “new” national culture following the social upheavals and military conflicts associated with the Mexican Revolution. The experience was Strand’s effort to create a visual record of Mexico documenting what he thought of as its unique character, while furthering its “revolutionary” transformation through photography and filmmaking.

No abstract

This article analyzes an individual, a context, and an experience. The individual is the photographer and filmmaker Paul Strand, widely recognized and occasionally criticized as one of the great modernist photographers of the twentieth century. The context is Mexico from 1932-34. In these years, Strand worked in Mexico amidst state-led efforts to construct a “new” national culture following the social upheavals and military conflicts associated with the Mexican Revolution. The experience was Strand’s effort to create a visual record of Mexico documenting what he thought of as its unique character, while furthering its “revolutionary” transformation through photography and filmmaking.

No abstract

The market for dictionaries, handbooks, and guides to ancient Mesoamerica seems to be a busy one, since hardly a year goes by without another entry into the crowded marketplace. The latest entry is this historical dictionary, part of a series of similar works from Scarecrow Press, an imprint of Rowman and Litdefield. This volume contains some 900 entries on important aspects of ancient Mesoamerica, from Acalan (Campeche) to Zempoala (Veracruz). It includes sites, civilizations, deities, diemes (for example, medicine and flowers), and individuals, such as Pacal (ruler of Palenque). Unfortunately die title is a bit misleading, as the dictionary focuses significantly on the Maya with only passing entries for the other civilizations of ancient Mesoamerica.