The sixteen-volume Handbook of Middle American Indians, completed in 1976, has been acclaimed the world over as the single most valuable resource ever produced for those involved in the study of Mesoamerica. When it was determined in 1978 that the Handbook should be updated periodically, Victoria Reifler Bricker, well-known cultural anthropologist, was elected to be general editor. This fourth volume of the Supplement is devoted to colonial ethnohistory. Four of the eleven chapters review research and ethnohistorical resources for Guatemala, South Yucatan, North Yucatan, and Oaxaca, areas that received less attention than the central Mexican area in the original Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources (HMAI vols. 12-15). Six substantive and problem-oriented studies cover the use of colonial texts in the study of pre-colonial Mayan languages; political and economic organization in the valleys of Mexico, Puebla-Tlaxcala, and Morelos; urban-rural relations in the Basin of Mexico; kinship and social organization in colonial Tenochtitlan; tlamemes and transport in colonial central Mexico; and land tenure and titles in central Mexico as reflected in colonial codices.

Military institutions and methods of warfare in the non-Western world from antiquity through the early 20th century provide the chief subjects of this annotated bibliography of works published before 1967, supplementing an earlier volume covering works published 1967–1997.

Includes entries for maps and atlases.