Any good books about GTO?

[peripateo]

I'm looking to do some reading on the city and was wondering if you would recommend anything. A history, travel guide, travelogue, in English or Spanish?

Thanks!

[The Duck]

see this post: http://www.gtolist.com/forum/thread-3111.html and also take a look at the CiudadMuseo website for over 50 short videos, a great slide show [only the best shots of gto] and more.

[Izzenhood]

Elizabeth Emma Ferry's book "Not Ours Alone" is an anthropological examination of the Santa Fe mining collective. Several mines in the area became a collective enterprise after failure of foreign ownership due to low metal prices.

Although someone familar with Guanajuato and its mining history and with surrounding communities might find it interesting, from my perspective it is best suited for an anthropologist or urbanist. Parts of the book are interesting, but it reads like a PHD dissertation; written for other anthropologists. The author lived in Santa Rosa for a few years in the late 1990's and describes her experience, and also describe the lives of the miners living in Santa Rosa and in Guanajauto, but not in enough detail.

More is written about what the book intends to describe, than what is ever described.

Still, as a geologist with a mining background, I found it worth reading, but it would be little use, and boring, for someone with just a general interest in the city of Guanajuato.

Then again, I'm sure it would be considered an important work for someone in her field. As I inferred before; it's way over my head.

[colleen]

Here is one of my favorites:

TRAMPING THROUGH MEXICO, GUATEMALA AND HONDURAS

Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond

By Harry A. Franck

Author Of
"A Vagabond Journey Around The World,"
"Zone Policeman 88,"
etc.

Illustrated With Photographs By The Author

To The Mexican Peon With Sincerest Wishes For His Ultimate Emancipation
FOREWORD

This simple story of a journey southward grew up of itself. Planning a comprehensive exploration of South America, I concluded to reach that continent by some less monotonous route than the steamship's track; and herewith is presented the unadorned narrative of what I saw on the way,—the day-by-day experiences in rambling over bad roads and into worse lodging-places that infallibly befall all who venture afield south of the Rio Grande. The present account joins up with that of five months on the Canal Zone, already published, clearing the stage for a larger forthcoming volume on South America giving the concrete results of four unbroken years of Latin-American travel.

Harry A. Franck.
New York, May, 1916.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
I INTO THE COOLER SOUTH
II TRAMPING THE BYWAYS
III IN A MEXICAN MINE
IV ROUND ABOUT LAKE CHAPALA
V ON THE TRAIL IN MICHOACÁN
VI TENOCHTITLAN OF TO-DAY
VII TROPICAL MEXICO
VIII HURRYING THROUGH GUATEMALA
IX THE UPS AND DOWNS OF HONDURAS
X THE CITY OF THE SILVER HILLS

It is available in several formats from Gutenberg.org. That's a free ebook website, all legal and out of copyright. I liked to read about his travel from Laredo in 1916 and on down here. For interest in Gto just read thru chapter III. I love when he talks about standing outside the mine in Valenciana and looking to Leon. Yeah, there would have been alot of space and probably a beautiful vista. I'll have to download the one with photos. When I got it years ago there weren't all the formats that there are now. Enjoy.

[mr bill]

Colleen, What a fantastic book! I skimmed it last night and have begun to go through it more thoroughly now. Opinionated and quite racist at times but a great read especially Chp 3 about mining here 100 years ago - and he's great at GTO PR too as seen in this short passage of Tramping through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras; by Franck, Harry A.

"Take the most perfect day of late May or early June in our North, brush off the clouds, make the air many times fresher and clearer, add October nights, and multiply the sum total by 365, and it is more easily understood why Americans who settle in the Guanajuato region so frequently remain there."

from P 62 here https://archive.org/stream/trampingthrou...2/mode/2up a hard to read copy* but it does have fotos [like the strip search of miners on leaving work].
Easier to read site [no pagination] is http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/7072...mages.html If you have Firefox and enable Reader View it is quite easy on the eyes.

* Go Full Screen on the page and then use the + magnifier button and its OK if your like reading in the original serif typeface.

[peddler665]

WOW! What a great Find!
Gracias!

[jesm]

This a wonderful find. Sure the author's perceptions are clouded by his prejudice and his times but the descriptions of his route, locals and conditions seem as fresh as today.