PhotographyвЂ™s fluidity and mobility made it a symbol of the time, as well as a potent medium for transnational cultural exchanges and the exploration of a new cultural geography (16). Mexico-based artists of different origins did not simply influence one another, Bravo suggests, but they also shared similar concerns about history and modernity, integrating limited strands of European influence into a larger American culture that was continental in scope rather than strictly national.ДЈIn this context, Mexico City needs to be reevaluated as a vibrant, global capital (10) whose role was no less crucial than that of Paris or New York, notably because it became the center of new inter-American visions and a вЂњhemispheric form of belongingвЂќ (viii).

As the two World Wars called for a redefinition of transatlantic relations, modernism in North America - including, but not limited to, photographic modernism - took it as one of its missions to forge a вЂњGreater America.вЂќ The bookвЂ™s ambition is to trace the contours of this new, transnational understanding of what вЂњAmericaвЂќ was. In this context, BravoвЂ™s main contention is that вЂњwhat America meantвЂќ was subject to considerable reevaluation in the following decades. вЂњEverything is extremely American,вЂќ Strand wrote on the back, adding, вЂњYou know what this means.вЂќ StrandвЂ™s America looked to the South as much as stretched U.S.

The front is printed with the photograph of an old Mission, part of CaliforniaвЂ™s Hispanic heritage, while the postmark commemorating the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition echoes the United StatesвЂ™ imperialist ambitions. This postcard reaffirms as much as it destabilizes the central importance of national culture, history and art in the constitution of вЂњAmericanвЂќ photography. Yet, from Rebeca ZurierвЂ™s Photographs of Mexico: Modotti/Strand/Weston (1978) to James KrippnerвЂ™s Paul Strand in Mexico (2010), through various biographies attempting to follow ModottiвЂ™s adventurous life, previous studies have tended to suggest a fairly unilateral, North-South circulation of photographic innovation and skills, besides crediting Weston and Modotti with вЂњhaving introduced new techniques and approaches to photography in MexicoвЂќ (Locke A., 2013: 112), thus paving the way for Mexican photographers to adapt modernism to a national culture marked by indigenismo.ДўMonica BravoвЂ™s Greater American Camera builds on the existing literature, but the illustration placed at the beginning of her essay - a postcard sent from California by Paul Strand to his mentor Alfred Stieglitz in May 1916 - signals a very different conversation. In numerous monographs and exhibitions dedicated to their careers, Mexican travels always emerge as a defining moment. 1There is no shortage of scholarship on emblematic вЂњAmericanвЂќ photographers Edward Weston, Paul Strand and Tina Modotti, and their relationships with Mexican culture in the 1920s and 1930s - most notably their influence on Manuel Alvarez Bravo.

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