Richard F. Townsend

Not new information, but well presented. Shows the power of Destiny. The conqueror, in his home base, is today one of the nations on the brink of financial disaster. More evidence of dastardly Destiny?

Today the Aztecs seem a remote, alien people. Warlike and bloodthirsty, they are best known as the practitioners of human sacrifice. Yet their creative achievements are impressive: within the space of a hundred years they established the largest empire in Mesoamerican history, and at Tenochtitlan built a vast, shimmering city in a lake, a Venice of the New World whose temple-pyramids, elegant plazas and thronging markets defied the descriptive powers