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Heart of Creation: The Mesoamerican World and the Legacy of Linda Schele. Andrea Stone, ed. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2002. 340 pp.
Between the covers of this book, readers whose careers were shaped or whose lives were touched by Schele's eclectic approach to understanding the Mesoamerican past will find much to quench their thirst for more. The book offers three types of valuable information, including research chapters, historiographical and biographical information, and a comprehensive bibliography of Schele's publications. The historical information puts her 30 years of contributions into the context of her growth as a scholar. Much of her fame derived from her ability to communicate with the nonacademic public, and to enlist them in the quest for more knowledge about Maya art and writing, as in the case of the celebrated Maya Meetings of Texas, discussed in the piece by Elin Danien. Schele's unique and compelling efforts to return the fruits of her scholastic work to contemporary Maya groups in Guatemala and Mexico are highlighted by Nikolai Grube and Federico Fahsen. Seven of the ten research chapters are written by Schele's former students. In these chapters, one finds many new arguments for long-lived elements of Mesoamerican creation mythology,...