The Indigenous Peoples of Mesoamerica and Central America: Their Societies, Cultures, and Histories

One of the inaugural recipients of our Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award, anthropologist Robert M. Carmack continues to enrich the field of Mesoamerican studies, the book under review one of several publications to appear since his retirement, a prodigiously fruitful one, after more than three decades of distinguished service at SUNY Albany. Compact yet wide ranging, The Indigenous Peoples of Mesoamerica and Central America is a synthesis of sorts, distilling the findings of Carmack’s sustained, assiduous labors since he filed his doctoral dissertation over half a century ago (Carmack 1965). That he draws still on data first unearthed in the archives or generated in the field when he was a graduate student at UCLA under the supervision of the inimitable H. B. Nicholson (1925—2007) says much about research forays undertaken not only to acquire a PhD but also to ensure outcomes that endure and continue to be relevant, a source...