Russell J. Barber and Frances F. Berdan have created the ultimate guide for anyone doing cross-cultural and/or document-driven research. Presenting the essentials of primary-source methodology, The Emperor's Mirror includes nine chapters on paleography, calendrics, source and quantitative analysis, and the visual interpretation of artifacts such as pictographs, illustrations, and maps.

As an introduction to ethnohistory, this book clearly defines terminology and provides practical and accessible examples, effectively integrating the concerns of historians and anthropologists as well as addressing the needs of anyone using primary sources for research in any academic field. A leading theme throughout the book is the importance of a researcher's awareness of the inherent biases of documents while doing research on another culture. Documents are the result of people interpreting reality through the filter of their own experience, personality, and culture.

Barber and Berdan's reality mediation model shows students how to analyze documents to detect the implicit biases or subtexts inherent in primary-source materials. Students and scholars working with primary sources will particularly appreciate the case studies that Barber and Berdan use to illustrate the practical implications of using each methodology. These case studies not only apply method to actual research but also are fascinating in their own right: they range from a discussion of the debate over Tupinamba cannibalism to the illustration of Nahuatl, Spanish, and hybrid place names of Tlaxcala, Mexico.

With its rich archaeological and historical record, the Aztec empire provides an intriguing opportunity to understand the dynamics and structure of early states and empires. Rethinking the Aztec Economy brings together leading scholars from multiple disciplines to thoroughly synthesize and examine the nature of goods and their movements across rural and urban landscapes in Mesoamerica. In so doing, they provide a new way of understanding society and economy in the Aztec empire.

The volume is divided into three parts. Part 1 synthesizes our current understanding of the Aztec economy and singles out the topics of urbanism and provincial merchant activity for more detailed analysis. Part 2 brings new data and a new conceptual approach that applies insights from behavioral economics to Nahua and Aztec rituals and social objects. Contributors also discuss how high-value luxury goods, such as feather art, provide insights about both economic and sacred concepts of value in Aztec society. Part 3 reexamines the economy at the Aztec periphery. The volume concludes with a synthesis on the scale, integration, and nature of change in the Aztec imperial economy.

Rethinking the Aztec Economy illustrates how superficially different kinds of social contexts were in fact integrated into a single society through the processes of a single economy. Using the world of goods as a crucial entry point, this volume advances scholarly understanding of life in the Aztec world.


Contributors:

Frances F. Berdan
Laura Filloy Nadal
Janine Gasco
Colin Hirth
Kenneth G. Hirth
Sarah Imfeld
María Olvido Moreno Guzmán
Deborah L. Nichols
Alan R. Sandstrom
Pamela Effrein Sandstrom
Michael E. Smith
Barbara L. Stark
Emily Umberger