Tlacaelel Remembered: Mastermind of the Aztec Empire

Tlacaelel is a historical person shrouded in mystery, up to the point that some believe that he never existed. According to some sources, Tlacaelel was the power behind the crown, a Rasputin behind Nicholas II or a Steve Bannon behind Donald Trump. Susan Schroeder delves into all the available material about this man and produces a thorough description of his role behind four Tenochca (Aztec) rulers. To contextualize the relatively scant information on Tlacaelel, Schroeder describes the political structure of the Tenochca empire and the history of Tenochtitlan before Tlacaelel's accession. In fact, it takes some time before we get to read about the protagonist, since it is almost halfway through the book that Tlacaelel appears. Schroeder describes him as a cunning, stubborn, and bloodthirsty man who always looked for wars to feed an almost insatiable hunger for sacrificial victims. It is important to consider, however, that such an image...