Time, History, and Belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico

This illuminating study offers a radical new understanding of how the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican societies conceived of time and history.

Based on their enormously complex calendars that recorded cycles of many kinds, the Aztecs and other ancient Mesoamerican civilizations are generally believed to have had a cyclical, rather than linear, conception of time and history. This boldly revisionist book challenges that understanding.

Ross Hassig offers convincing evidence that for the Az...