Located between Mexico City and Veracruz, Puebla has been a political hub since its founding as Puebla de los Angeles in 1531. Frances L. Ramos's dynamic and meticulously researched study exposes and explains the many (and often surprising) ways that politics and political culture were forged, tested, and demonstrated through public ceremonies in eighteenth-century Puebla, colonial Mexico's "second city."

With Ramos as a guide, we are not only dazzled by the trappings of power--the silk canopies, brocaded robes, and exploding fireworks--but are also witnesses to the public spectacles...