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Imperialism and the Origins of Mexican Culture. By Colin M. MacLachlan. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. vii + 340. $35.00 hardcover.
Few events in modern history can compare in significance with the global encounter of 1492. While the Old World clearly benefitted more than the New World from the developments that followed Columbus's voyage, Colin MacLachlan's account makes clear that the consequences were not entirely bad for Native Americans. Utilizing a rich combination of political, economic, social, and religious analysis, Imperialism and the Origins of Mexican Culture concludes that the fusion of Spanish and pre-Columbian culture "represented modernity" (261).
The structure of MacLachlan's narrative is simple but effective. He first describes the evolution of "Indo-Mexico" from the earliest archeological traces to the highly developed, but unsustainable, empire of the Aztecs. He then narrates the development of Iberia from ancient and Roman times through the Visigothic and Moorish periods to the triumphal conclusion of the Christian crusade to reconquer the peninsula in 1492. The final chapter describes how the imperial traditions of Indo-Mexico and Christian Spain collided and merged in the sixteenth century to form a complex and never fully integrated Spanish, Indian, Mestizo civilization.
The book's best chapter is the one on pre-Columbian...