Ink under the Fingernails

"Thanks to painstaking and intensive archival research, Ink under the Fingernails offers an exceptional, in-depth examination of print politics and commerce during Mexico's pivotal and formative nineteenth century. Amid the wars, unrest, and unpredictable economic swings Zeltsman tracks the strategies, triumphs, and controversies as printers struggled to define and defend press freedom amid shifting legal frameworks while simultaneously developing and marketing new products and peddling traditional printed materials."––Edward Wright-Rios, author of Searching for Madre Matiana: Prophecy and Popular Culture in Modern Mexico

"This well-written and sophisticated book gives us a fresh, exciting look at the material realities behind Mexico’s vibrant and rich nineteenth-century periodical press, as well as rich insights into how printers negotiated press freedoms in the challenging political context of the era. A very welcome contribution to nineteenth-century studies."––Margaret Chowning, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley

"Zeltsman directs a perceptive eye at the social and political aspects of printing in Mexico City. This detailed and comprehensive account of the materiality, technology, and production processes of all printed matter during more than a century of national history challenges the usual hierarchies that have shaped scholarship: instead of journalists, it deals with printers; instead of freedom of speech, it looks at freedom of printing. In doing so, it proposes a useful revision of a history centered on intellectuals and shows the relevance of a diverse cast of characters, from editors and sellers to those who handled types, paper, and ink."––Pablo Piccato, Professor of History, Columbia University