This book is part of an encyclopedia set concerning the environment, archaeology, ethnology, social anthropology, ethnohistory, linguistics and physical anthropology of the native peoples of Mexico and Central America. The Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources is comprised of volumes 12-15 of this set. Volume 13 presents a look at pre-Columbian Mesoamerican from a combined historical and anthropological viewpoint, using official ecclesiastical and government records from the time.

Volume 13 of the Handbook of Middle American Indians, published in cooperation with the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University under the general editorship of Robert Wauchope (1909–1979), constitutes Part 2 of the Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources. The Guide has been assembled under the volume editorship of the late Howard F. Cline, Director of the Hispanic Foundation in the Library of Congress, with Charles Gibson, John B. Glass, and H. B. Nicholson as associate volume editors. It covers geography and ethnogeography (Volume 12); sources in the European tradition (Volume 13); and sources in the native tradition (Volumes 14 and 15). The present volume contains the following studies on sources in the European tradition: “Published Collections of Documents Relating to Middle American Ethnohistory,” by Charles Gibson “An Introductory Survey of Secular Writings in the European Tradition on Colonial Middle America, 1503–1818,” by J. Benedict Warren “Religious Chroniclers and Historians: A Summary with Annotated Bibliography,” by Ernest J. Burrus, S.J. “Bernardino de Sahagún,” by Luis Nicolau d’Olwer, Howard F. Cline, and H. B. Nicholson “Antonio de Herrera,” by Manuel Ballesteros Gaibrois “Juan de Torquemada,” by José Alcina Franch “Francisco Javier Clavigero,” by Charles E. Ronan, S.J. “Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg,” by Carroll Edward Mace “Hubert Howe Bancroft,” by Howard F. Cline “Eduard Georg Seler,” by H. B. Nicholson “Selected Nineteenth-Century Mexican Writers on Ethnohistory,” by Howard F. Cline The Handbook of Middle American Indians was assembled and edited at the Middle American Research Institute of Tulane University with the assistance of grants from the National Science Foundation and under the sponsorship of the National Research Council Committee on Latin American Anthropology.

In The End of Catholic Mexico, historian David Gilbert provides a new interpretation of one of the defining events of Mexican history: the Reforma. During this period, Mexico was transformed from a Catholic confessional state into a modern secular nation, sparking a three-year civil war in the process. While past accounts have portrayed the Reforma as a political contest, ending with a liberal triumph over conservative elites, Gilbert argues that it was a much broader culture war centered on religion. This dynamic, he contends, explains why the resulting conflict was more violent and the outcome more extreme than other similar contests during the nineteenth century. Gilbert’s fresh account of this pivotal moment in Mexican history will be of interest to scholars of postindependence Mexico, Latin American religious history, nineteenth-century church history, and US historians of the antebellum republic.

United States-Latin American Relations, 1850-1903 is a collection of essays that provide an in-depth analysis of the developing relationship between the Americas during the critical period from the Mexican War to the Panama Canal treaty of 1903.