Images at War

“A fascinating and creative history of Mexico . . . . The book at once telescopes onto colonial Mexico and wide-angles onto a global picture, and its fine translation into English by Heather MacLean will no doubt give it a visibility that accords with its breath. Mr. Gruzinski’s essential task is to show how the history of colonialism in Mexico has been bound to the status, use, and understandings of religious images. The task is enormous and enormously complex, and the author manages to meet it with a combination of ingenuity and wide-ranging scholarship.” - Laura Bass , Washington Times

“Gruzinski brings a Parisian postmodern flourish. Rooting his account in how Mexico’s various ethnic groups left their own distinct marks, his stimulating discussion ranges from the history of the country since the early Spanish conquistadors to the programs produced by the powerful TV network Televisa. This rich hybrid culture continues today, he writes, and helps Mexico manage its baroque pluralism.” - Kenneth Maxwell , Foreign Affairs

“Images at War remains an important, original and stimulating study, painted on a broad canvas with verve and insight. Pursuing the metaphor, which seems appropriate, one could say that the brushwork is boldly sweeping rather than carefully meticulous; and the resulting canvas is therefore more Baroque—rich, jumbled, and evocative—than cautiously and lucidly neo-classical.” - Alan Knight, EIAL

“Serge Gruzinski reinterprets the Spanish colonization of Mexico, concentrating on the political meaning of the baroque image and its function in a multicultural society, comparing its ubiquity in Mexico to our modern fascination with images and their meaning. He shows how various ethnic groups left their distinct marks on images of colonialism and religion.” - Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education

"Images at War remains a powerful contribution to the field of Latin American colonial studies. Moreover, it should find an audience interested in the politics of cultural production in settings outside of the colonial era and/or Latin America." - Michael Ennis , Nepantla

"[A]n important work that contributes to the understanding of the effects of colonization on the peoples of Mexico. . . . It offers the reader a magnificent documentation, a series of insightful readings performed by an acute observer, and a focus on the hitherto neglected role of the image in the colonization of that important region." - Gustavo Verdesio, New Centennial Review

"Gruzinski skillfully moves from high theology to heterodox cult and back again, seamlessly combining social and cultural history of a high order in ways that make one sometimes gasp at the fruitful interpretive leaps he makes." - Colonial Latin American Review

"Heather MacLean’s translation of this work into English is especially welcome. . . . This is an imaginative, highly original, and ultimately path-breaking work. . . . The book is . . . fun." - James Krippner-Martinez , Hispanic American Historical Review

“A magnificent study—already influential in its field. One gets a far richer sense of colonial Mexico in these pages than is offered by the kind of literary or cultural history that can only draw on a few scanty documents and verbal testimonials. This book speaks powerfully to our contemporary appetite for a renewal of our views of the colonial and postcolonial eras.” - Fredric Jameson