In the shadow of Quetzalcoatl Zelia Nuttall and the search for Mexico's ancient civilizations

Grindle (Bureaucrats, Politicians, and Peasants in Mexico), a professor of international development at Harvard, delivers an insightful and accessible biography of Zelia Nuttall (1857--1933), a pioneer in scholarly research on the ancient civilizations of Mexico. A protégé of renowned Harvard anthropologist Frederic Putnam, Nuttall worked as an anthropologist when very few women were employed in the field. An astute and intrepid researcher, she was the first person to accurately decipher the Aztec calendar stone; wrote a seminal study of the terra-cotta heads of Teotihuacán; and decoded the Codex Nuttall, a rare pre-Columbian manuscript that revealed much about early Mesoamerican art, literature, and history. Nuttall and her contemporaries created exhibits for the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and were instrumental in the development of modern museums in Pennsylvania and California, ushering in a new era of cultural studies and appreciation. Despite her extensive travels, Nuttall's lifelong love for Mexico never waned, and she eventually settled there and developed an expertise in the native plants of ancient Mexico. Grindle combines a rousing tale of archaeological discovery with an incisive description of how institutional marginalization occurs, tracing how Nuttall's legacy was ignored by subsequent generations of anthropologists. This enjoyable account restores to prominence an influential figure in her field. (Nov.)

Grindle (emerita, Latin American studies, Harvard; Bureaucrats, Politicians and Peasants in Mexico) recounts the trailblazing story of archaeologist Zelia Nuttall (1857--1933). She was a highly intelligent U.S. scholar who refused to be bound by societal pressures and restrictions placed upon women. Fascinated by her mother's homeland of Mexico, Nuttall had many research interests that ranged from the voyages of Sir Francis Drake to her seminal work on the Aztec calendar system. She traveled extensively throughout the Americas and Europe, spending countless hours in libraries and museums pouring over colonial manuscripts, translating pre-Columbian codices, and making a close study of countless artifacts. Conversant in numerous languages and friends with intellectuals and wealthy donors--philanthropist/feminist Phoebe Hearst, for example--Nuttall and her work were influential. Sadly, as the decades passed, archaeology often overlooked one of its founding mothers. VERDICT This book does an exemplary job of conveying this distinctive story of a single mother who accomplished many wondrous things in a world and an era that were decidedly against her.--Brian Renvall