In Prehistory of the Americas (1987) Stuart Fiedel provides an excellent summary of the early history of the Western Hemisphere. Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., in The Indian Heritage of America (1968), also provides a thorough introduction to the topic. Canada’s First Nations (1992) by Olive Patricia Dickason is a well-written survey that traces the history of Canada’s Amerindian peoples to the modern era. Early Man in the New World, ed. Richard Shutler, Jr. (1983), provides a helpful addition to these works. Atlas of Ancient America (1986) by Michael Coe, Elizabeth P Benson, and Dean R. Snow is a useful compendium of maps and information. George Kubler, The Art and Architecture of Ancient America (1962), is a valuable resource, though now dated.
Susan Kellogg’s early chapters in Weaving the Past (2005) provide an excellent synthesis of the place of women in the indigenous societies of Mesoamerica and the Andes. A good summary of recent research on Teotihuacan is found in Esther Pasztori, Teotihuacan (1997). Linda Schele and David Freidel summarize the most recent research on the classic-period Maya in their excellent A Forest of Kings (1990). See also David Drew, The Lost Chronicles of the Maya Kings (1999). Geoffrey E. Braswell, ed., The Maya and Teotihuacan (2003), includes the best current research on this relationship. For the Toltecs, see Alba Guadalupe Mastache, Robert H. Cobean, and Dan M. Healan, Ancient Tollan, Tula and the Toltec Heartland (2002). The best summary of Aztec history is Nigel Davies, The Aztec Empire: The Toltec Resurgence (1987). Though controversial in some of its analysis, Inga Clendinnen’s Aztecs (1991) is also an important contribution.
Chaco andHohokam (1991), ed. Patricia L. Crown and W. James Judge, is a good summary of research issues. Robert Silverberg, Mound Builders of Ancient America (1968), supplies a good introduction to this topic. See also Understanding Complexity in the Prehistoric Southwest, ed. George J. Gumerman and Murray Gell-Mann (1994).
A helpful introduction to the scholarship on early Andean societies is provided by Karen Olsen Bruhns, Ancient South America (1994). For the Moche, see Garth Bawden, The Moche (1996). The History of the Incas (1970) by Alfred Metraux is dated but offers a useful summary. The best recent modern synthesis is Marla Rostworowski de Diez Canseco, History of the Inca Realm, trans. by Harry B. Iceland (1999). John Murra, The Economic Organization of the Inca State (1980), and Irene Silverblatt, Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru (1987), are challenging, important works on Peru before the arrival of Columbus in the Western Hemisphere. See Frank Salomon, The Cord Keepers, Khipus and Cultural Life in a Peruvian Village (2004), especially the early chapters, for an up-to-date discussion of Andean culture and social organization.
World History
