The Mixtecs of Oaxaca: Ancient Times to the Present ed. by Ronald Spores and Andrew K. Balkansky (review)
Chapters 2 and 3 deal competently with pre-contact Pueblo history and with the PlainsPueblo interactions of the period before Spanish arrival. The last four chapters cover Spanish contact and its consequences, and Carter is clearly much more in his element here. But for long stretches in these chapters the book becomes a very conventional historical summary covering the conquest of the Aztecs and subsequent expeditions to the north. The “alliance” theme, never particularly well developed, largely recedes into the background in these sections. In fact, the term “alliance” is never defined: it is absent from the index, and the range of economic, religious, and political behaviors grouped together under the term is so wide as to dilute its descriptive or explanatory power.