Friar and the Maya

Matthew Restall is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Anthropology and director of Latin American Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. A past president of the American Society for Ethnohistory, he is former editor of Ethnohistory and the Hispanic American Historical Review. He has written some hundred articles and essays and two dozen books on Latin American history, including When Montezuma Met Cortés and Return to Ixil.  Amara Solari is professor of art history and anthropology at the Pennsylvania State University. Her three monographs are Maya-Christian Murals of Early Modern Yucatan; Idolizing Mary: Maya-Catholic Icons in Yucatán; and Maya Ideologies of the Sacred. Her coauthored books include The Maya Apocalypse and Its Western Roots. She is former editor of the Hispanic American Historical Review, and her articles have appeared in various journals, including The Art Bulletin and Ethnohistory.  John F. Chuchiak IV is Distinguished Professor of Colonial Latin American History, the Rich and Doris Young Honors College Endowed Professor, dean and director of the Honors College and Global Studies Program, and the director of the Latin American, Caribbean, and Hispanic Studies Program at Missouri State University. His numerous articles, essays, and books include El castigo y la reprensión (on the extirpation of idolatry in Yucatan) and The Inquisition in New Spain, 1536–1820.  Traci Ardren is professor of anthropology at the University of Miami. She has conducted archaeological research at the ancient Maya city of Yaxuna and other cities of Yucatan for over thirty years. She is the author of Everyday Life in the Classic Maya World and Social Identities in the Classic Maya Northern Lowlands and coeditor of The Social Experience of Childhood in Ancient Mesoamerica and The Maya World.

“This book catapults the fields of archaeology, anthropology, and history into the twenty-first century. The authors bring a sophisticated and nuanced approach to early colonial Spanish writings. They apply their comprehensive knowledge of archival records—gleaned over decades of research—to this iconic and heavily cited account of sixteenth-century Yucatec Maya peoples. This book is a singular work that will be the definitive edition to read and cite for the next fifty years.”—Patricia McAnany, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill  “A touchstone of Maya research with unquestionable importance, this book will have a resounding impact on the field for years to come.”—John F. Schwaller, University of Albany