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Estructura politico-territorial del Imperio tenochca: La triple alianza de Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco y Tlacopin. By Pedro Carrasco. (Mexico City: Colegio de Mexico and Fondo de Cultura Economica, I996. 670 pp., tables, maps, bibliography, index.) In the early fifteenth century, the kings of three cities of the Basin of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Tetzcoco, and Tlacopan-joined forces to create an empire, known as the Empire of the Triple Alliance, which came to be dominated by Tenochtitlan. This book, by a leading ethnohistorian of Mesoamerica, is about that empire's political and territorial structure. Carrasco does not set out to study all aspects of the imperial system. Such matters as trade, kinship, social stratification, military tactics, religion, and art, although they played a part in that system, are mentioned only insofar as they relate directly to the political and territorial structure. But it is by far the most thorough study of that structure yet published.
Two features in particular distinguish this book from others written about the empire in recent years. The first is the author's meticulous examination of the sources-of every published one and a good many unpublished documents. He does not merely cite these sources, but leads the reader through detailed analyses of them. Nothing...