Hot off the presses is “Foreign Footprints in Ajijic: Decades of Change in a Mexican Village,” the latest literary oeuvre penned by author and historian Tony Burton.
The book is a masterpiece that is bound to enthrall readers curious about foreign influences that turned a tiny backwater fishing village into a cosmopolitan cultural hub and expatriate residential hotspot.
Born and educated in the United Kingdom, Burton first visited Mexico in 1977. He subsequently lived and worked full-time out of Jocotepec for almost 18 years as a freelance writer, educator and ecotourism specialist. He continues to revisit Mexico regularly since relocating with his wife and children to Vancouver Island, B.C., Canada.
An erudite scholar and, without question, the top expert on Lake Chapala’s regional history, Burton has traced Ajijic’s evolution through the better part of the 20th century. Broken up into five sections, the text is blocked in chronological order by decade from the before the 1940s through the 1970s. It covers the seminal years of the town’s social, political, cultural and physical development.
It is Burton’s well-honed talent at writing concise, fluid and fact-packed prose that captivates the reader with an account of the unlikely transformation of a tiny dot on the world map blessed with an incomparable climate and the hospitable native population that has welcomed strangers from afar to share their unique habitat.
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