Refried Elvis - by Eric Zolov (Paperback)

About the Book

From the arrival of Elvis in Mexico during the 1950s to the emergence of a full-blown counterculture movement by the late 1960s and into the 70s, Zolov uses rock to illuminate Mexican history. Zolov shows rock music as a commodity, with influences shaped by intellectuals, the state, and transnational capital as well as musicians and fans. It's a study of the political uses of culture in an authoritarian state.

Book Synopsis

This powerful study shows how America's biggest export, rock and roll, became a major influence in Mexican politics, society, and culture. From the arrival of Elvis in Mexico during the 1950s to the emergence of a full-blown counterculture movement by the late 1960s, Eric Zolov uses rock and roll to illuminate Mexican history through these charged decades and into the 1970s. This fascinating narrative traces the rechanneling of youth energies away from political protest in the wake of the 1968 student movement and into counterculture rebellion, known as La Onda (The Wave). Refried Elvis accounts for the events of 1968 and their aftermath by revealing a mounting crisis of patriarchal values, linked both to the experience of modernization during the 1950s and 1960s and to the limits of cultural nationalism as promoted by a one-party state.

Through an engrossing analysis of music and film, as well as fanzines, newspapers, government documents, company reports, and numerous interviews, Zolov shows how rock music culture became a volatile commodity force, whose production and consumption strategies were shaped by intellectuals, state agencies, transnational and local capital, musicians, and fans alike. More than a history of Mexican rock and roll, Zolov's study demonstrates the politicized nature of culture under authoritarianism, and offers a nuanced discussion of the effects of cultural imperialism that deepens our understanding of gender relations, social hierarchies, and the very meanings of national identity in a transnational era.

From the Back Cover

"An innovative, perceptive, and empirically rich contribution to the cultural history of transnationalism. It is also a work that focuses on an aspect of Mexican history that has been treated almost exclusively by writers and journalists and has not made its mark in historical discussions until now."--Claudio Lomnitz, author of Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in the Mexican National Space

"Zolov's study goes beyond a straightforward history of rock in Mexico (which he does very successfully) to address simultaneously the role of popular culture in constructing (and contesting) discourses of nationalism and the impact of globalization of the culture industry in third world contexts. . . . A welcome addition to a substantial and increasingly important field of inquiry."--Deborah Pacini Hernandez, author of Bachata: A Social History of a Dominican Popular Music

About the Author

Eric Zolov is Professor of History at Stony Brook University.