The Aztec Image in Western Thought

xviii, 667 pp. Includes 57 illustrations and 2 maps. "Benjamin Keen explains how each new synthesis, however extravagant, continuously corrected and developed the Western conception of Aztec civilization. He relates prevailing ideas about the Aztecs to the broad socioeconomic, political, and ideological patterns of the age, as well as to the contemporary state of knowledge about ancient Mexico."--jacket