"Horizontal Vertigo: the title refers to the fear of ever-impending earthquakes, which led Mexicans to build their capital city outward rather than upward. With the perspicacity of a keenly observant flaneur, Villoro wanders through the city seemingly without a plan, describing people, places, and things, while brilliantly drawing connections among them, the better to reveal, in all its multitudinous glory, the vicissitudes and triumphs of Mexico...