The founding of the National Museum of Mexico by presidential decree in 1825, just four years after the collapse of colonial rule, represented a symbolic proclamation of cultural independence that early republican governments proved unable to sustain materially. A succession of museum directors struggled to make the museum a reality over the next half century despite nonexistent budgets, lack of space, political disruptions, and foreign invasion. Their uneven success led later generations of observers and historians to dismiss the museum’s early story as one of false starts, in contrast to the spectacular institution building pursued during the late nineteenth century, as modernizing dictator Porfirio Díaz consolidated the liberal nation state. While Porfirian elites mobilized antiquities to create legitimating narratives rooted in the preconquest past, however, their efforts did not come out of nowhere. Miruna Achim’s engaging and well-written study, From Idols to Antiquity, demonstrates that the museum’s early trajectory...

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