A collection of pathbreaking essays on Aztec and Maya culture in the sixteenth century.

Introduction; 1. 'Fierce and unnatural cruelty': Cortés and the conquest of Mexico; 2. Disciplining the Indians: Franciscan ideology and missionary violence in sixteenth-century Yucatán; 3. The cost of courage in Aztec society; 4. Ways to the sacred: reconstructing 'religion' in sixteenth century Mexico; 5. Landscape and world view: the survival of Yucatec Maya culture under Spanish conquest; 6. Breaking the mirror: from the Aztec spring festival to organ transplantation; 7. Reading Mr. Robinson.

Inga Clendinnen is a distinguished historian of the Spanish encounters with Aztec and Maya indians of sixteenth-century America. Her Reading the Holocaust was named a New York Times best book of the year and awarded the NSW Premier's General History Award in 1999. Clendinnen's ABC Boyer Lectures, True Stories, were published in 2000, as was her award-winning memoir, Tiger's Eye. In 2003 Dancing With Strangers attracted wide critical acclaim. Her latest book is Agamemnon's Kiss: Selected Essays.