Books on pre Columbian america

by Flashy-Ad3415

I'm looking for a book that examines pre Columbian america in a larger context. Long distance trade, Spiro mound builder cities, major tribal conflicts. I would even consider a fact inspired fiction as well. Thank you

lilith_queen

I have a reading list of Mesoamerican (Aztec/Maya/Western Mexico/Oaxaca) resources! I can only personally vouch for the Aztec ones, however, since that is my concentration. (also paging /u/jabberwockxeno, who is a godsend when it comes to long writeups on pre-columbian Mesoamerica, and /u/Mictlantecuhtli, who provided the non-Aztec sections on tumblr (at least, i hope i've connected the username to the right person))

General Info

  • Mann, Charles C. 1491: New revelations of the Americas before Columbus. Alfred a Knopf Incorporated, 2005.

  • Coe, Michael D., and Rex Koontz. Mexico: from the Olmecs to the Aztecs. Vol. 29. Thames & Hudson, 2008.

  • Evans, Susan Toby. Ancient Mexico and Central America: archaeology and culture history. Thames & hudson, 2013.

  • Coe, Sophie D. America’s first cuisines. University of Texas Press, 1994.

  • Matthew, Laura E., and Michel R. Oudijk. Indian conquistadors: Indigenous allies in the conquest of Mesoamerica. University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.

  • Restall, Matthew. Seven myths of the Spanish conquest. Oxford University Press, 2004.

  • Miller, Mary Ellen, and Karl Taube. An illustrated dictionary of the gods and symbols of ancient Mexico and the Maya. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997.

Aztec

  • Smith, Michael E. The Aztecs. John Wiley & Sons, 2013.

  • Hassig, Ross. Aztec warfare: Imperial expansion and political control. Vol. 188. University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.

  • Soustelle, Jacques. Daily life of the Aztecs. Courier Corporation, 2002.

  • León-Portilla, Miguel. Aztec Thought and Culture. University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.

  • Anderson, Arthur JO, and Charles E. Dibble. Florentine Codex. School of American Research and University of Utah, Sante Fe, New Mexico, II(1950).

  • Portilla, Miguel León. The broken spears: The Aztec account of the conquest of Mexico. Beacon Press, 2006.

  • Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. Handbook to Life in the Aztec World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.

  • Berdan, Frances F., and Michael E. Smith. Everyday Life in the Aztec World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2020.

  • Berdan, Frances, and Patricia Rieff Anawalt. The Essential Codex Mendoza. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.

  • Bray, Warwick. Everyday Life of the Aztecs … Drawings by Eva Wilson. B.T. Batsford: London; G.P. Putnam’s Sons: New York, 1968.

  • Brundage, Burr Cartwright. A Rain of Darts: The Mexica Aztecs. 2014.

  • Hassig, Ross. Mexico and the Spanish Conquest. London: Longman, 1994.

  • Rojas Gutiérrez de Gandarilla, José Luis de. Tenochtitlan Capital of the Aztec Empire. Gainesville: Univ. Press of Florida, 2014.

  • Solís Olguín, Felipe R. The Aztec Empire. New York, N.Y.: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 2004

  • Smith, Michael E. (Arizona State University USA). Postclassic Mesoamerican World. 2010.

  • Townsend, Camilla. Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. 2019.

Maya

  • Houston, Stephen D., and Takeshi Inomata. The Classic Maya. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

  • Freidel, David, and Linda Schele. A forest of kings: The untold story of the ancient Maya. Harper Collins, 1992.

  • Freidel, David A., Linda Schele, and Joy Parker. Maya Cosmos Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path. (1993).

  • Martin, Simon, and Nikolai Grube. Chronicle of the Maya kings and queens: Deciphering the dynasties of the ancient Maya. Thames & Hudson, 2008.

  • Coe, Michael D. “Breaking the Maya Code, rev. ed.” London and NewYork(1999).

  • American Anthropological Association. Ancient Maya Commoners. Eds. Jon C. Lohse, and Fred Valdez Jr. University of Texas Press, 2004.

  • Demarest, Arthur. Ancient Maya: the rise and fall of a rainforest civilization. Vol. 3. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

  • Sharer, Robert J., and Loa P. Traxler. The ancient maya. Stanford University Press, 2006.

  • Iannone, Gyles, and Samuel V. Connell. Perspectives on Ancient Maya Rural Complexity. The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press, 2003.

  • Scarborough, Vernon L., Fred Valdez, and Nicholas P. Dunning, eds. Heterarchy, Political Economy, and the Ancient Maya: The Three Rivers Region of the East-central Yucatˆn Peninsula. University of Arizona Press, 2003.

  • Houston, Stephen, David Stuart, and Karl Taube. The memory of bones: Body, being, and experience among the Classic Maya. University of Texas Press, 2013.

  • Jones, Grant D. The conquest of the last Maya kingdom. Stanford University Press, 1998.

West Mexico

  • Pollard, Helen Perlstein. Tariacuri’s Legacy: The Prehispanic Tarascan State. University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.

  • Warren, Joseph Benedict. The conquest of Michoacan: the Spanish domination of the Tarascan kingdom in western Mexico, 1521-1530. University of Oklahoma Press, 1985.

  • Von Winning, Hasso, and Olga Hammer. Anecdotal sculpture of ancient West Mexico. Ethnic Arts Council of Los Angeles, 1972.

  • Von Winning, Hasso. The shaft tomb figures of West Mexico. No. 24. Southwest Museum, 1974.

  • Hosler, Dorothy. The sounds and colors of power: The sacred metallurgical technology of ancient west Mexico. MIT Press, 1994.

  • Townsend, Richard F. Ancient West Mexico: Art and archaeology of the unknown past. Thames and Hudson, 1998.

  • Beekman, Christopher S. and Robert B. Pickering. Shaft Tombs and Figurines in West Mexican Society: A Reassessment. Gilcrease Museum, 2016.

  • Altman, Ida. The War for Mexico’s West: Indians and Spaniards in New Galicia, 1524-1550. University of New Mexico Press, 2010.

  • Williams, Eduardo. Ancient West Mexico in the Mesoamerican Ecumene. Archaeopress, 2020.

Oaxaca

  • Flannery, Kent V. The cloud people: Divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Percheron Pr, 2003.

  • Byland, Bruce, and John MD Pohl. In the Realm of Eight Deer. (1994).

  • Joyce, Arthur A. Mixtecs, Zapotecs, and Chatinos. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell (2010).

  • Winter, Marcus. Oaxaca: the archaeological record. Editorial Minutiae Mexicana, 1989.

  • Joyce, Arthur A., ed. Polity and ecology in Formative period coastal Oaxaca. University Press of Colorado, 2013.

  • Spores, Ronald, and Andrew K. Balkansky. The Mixtecs of Oaxaca: Ancient Times to the Present. Vol. 267. University of Oklahoma Press, 2013.

  • Terraciano, Kevin. The Mixtecs of colonial Oaxaca: Ñudzahui history, sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Stanford University Press, 2004.