Recreates the culture of the city of Tenochtitlan before it fell to the Spaniards.

Introduction; Part I. The City: 1. Tenochtitlan: the public image; 2. Local perspectives; Part II. Roles: 3. Victims; 4. Warriors, priests and merchants; 5. The masculine self discovered; 6. Wives; 7. Mothers; 8. The female being revealed; Part III. The Sacred: 9. Aesthetics; 10. Ritual: the world transformed, the world revealed; Part IV: 11. Defeat; Epilogue; A question of sources; Monthly ceremonies of the seasonal calendar; The Mexica pantheon; Notes; Select bibliography; Index.

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.