Gaunt Heroes

Deathly Business in a Civil War

Abstract

Dr. Adriana Gómez-Aiza discusses the use of images as primary sources in historical studies, focusing on their application beyond written documents and debates among experts regarding their reliability and relevance. The study underscores how photographs from the Fondo Casasola, a significant Mexican archive that safeguards the visual testimonies of the country’s history, depict death, military casualties, and political murder during the Mexican Revolution. It also calls attention to the value of historical photographs across disciplines in understanding and researching human behavior, especially in the context of a liberal arts education, where scholars and students from different disciplines offer diverse perspectives that enrich interpretations of historical events.