Best History Book, Maine Photographic Workshops, 2001 Western Books Exhibition,The Rounce & Coffin Club The history of photography in Mexico was a largely untold story until the 1994 publication of Olivier Debroise's Fuga Mexicana, un recorrido por la fotografía en México. Based on ten years' research in public and private photographic archives in Mexico, the United States, Guatemala, and Europe, Fuga Mexicana provided the first comprehensive survey of Mexican photography from the advent of the daguerreotype in 1839 to the present. Now this benchmark publication is available in English as Mexican Suite. Olivier Debroise and Stella de Sá Rego have revised this edition to include more current material and explanatory notes for an audience less familiar with Mexican history. They have also eliminated some of the general history of photography and added more of the early history of photography in Mexico, as well as many new, previously unpublished images.The book is organized both chronologically and thematically, which allows viewer/readers to follow the evolution of major photographic genres and styles. Debroise also examines the role of photography in the development of modern Mexico and the influence of prominent foreign photographers such as Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. In its totality, Mexican Suite constitutes an extended essay on Mexican culture as a whole and on how this culture has been read, interpreted, and imagined. In 1994, after ten years of research in public and private collections in Mexico, Guatemala, Europe, and the United States, art and cultural historian Debroise published his study, which began with the daguerreotype and continued through the 1990s. His chronological compilation has now been translated and revised for a non-Mexican audience; more depth on Mexican history and early Mexican photography has been added, while some general history of early photography has been eliminated. The 143 images show 150 years of cultural and historical change in Mexico, from portraits of tradesmen and soldiers, wedding photos, and early cityscapes, to records of the revolution and graphic images of firing squads, to stunning landscapes and pictures of ancient ruins. The book includes not only Mexican photographers of note but others who worked in Mexico, e.g., Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. This book will become the most complete and useful English-language text on its subject, and will be the essential starting point for anyone wishing to incorporate Mexican material into a photographic survey course, to add photography to a course on Mexican culture, or to do more research in the field. -- Martha A. Sandweiss, Associate Professor of American Studies and History, Amherst College This book will become the most complete and useful English-language text on its subject, and will be the essential starting point for anyone wishing to incorporate Mexican material into a photographic survey course, to add photography to a course on Mexican culture, or to do more research in the field. -- Martha A. Sandweiss, Associate Professor of American Studies and History, Amherst College Olivier Debroise is an art and cultural historian, critic, curator, novelist, and filmmaker who lives in Mexico City. Stella de Sá Rego is Archivist of Pictorial Collections at the Center for Southwest Research at the University of New Mexico.