The Formation of Latin American Nations

This pioneering work brings the pre-Columbian and colonial history of Latin America home: rather than starting out in Spain and following Columbus and the conquistadores as they "discover" New World peoples, The Formation of Latin American Nations begins with the Mesoamerican and South American nations as they were before the advent of European colonialism--and only then moves on to the sixteenth-century Spanish arrival and its impact. To form a clearer picture of precolonial Latin America, Thomas Ward reads between the lines in the "Chronicles of the Indies," filling in the blanks with information derived from archaeology, anthropology, genetics, and common-sense logic. Although he finds fascinating points of comparison among the K'iche' Maya in Central America, the polities (señoríos) of Colombia, and the Chimú of the northern Peruvian coast, Ward focuses on two of the best-known peoples: the Nahua (Aztec) of Central Mexico and the Inka of the Andes. His study privileges indigenous-identified authors such as Diego Muñoz Camargo, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala while it also consults Spanish chroniclers like Hernán Cortés,