Book Review: The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, The Life of Mexico City by Barbara E. Mundy

Abstract

Barbara E. Mundy. The Death of Aztec Tenochtitlan, The Life of Mexico City . Austin: University of Texas, 2015 [First paperback edition, 2018]. ISBN 9781477317136. 256 pages, 5 black and white illustrations, 22 maps, 72 color illustrations, 62 color photos, 1 black and white photo. $45.00 Barbara E. Mundy’s multiple award-winning book is a landmark contribution to the understanding of the history of Mexico City. Challenging the extended idea that the physical destruction of Tenochtitlan and the overthrow of its leaders in 1521 constituted the “death” of the Aztec capital, Mundy offers an insightful and enthralling story about the endurance of native Tenochtitlan in the post-conquest period. With a population of nearly 150,000, Tenochtitlan was one of the largest cities in the world at the beginning of the 16th century. It was located on an island in the middle of lake Tetzcoco in the Central Valley of Mexico and was the center of a vast empire formed by a network of tributary states subdued during the military campaigns of the Triple Alliance, a political coalition established by the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, the Acolhua of Tetzcoco, and the Tepanec of Tlacopan in 1428. Multiple accounts, like Hernan Cortes’ Third Letter to the Emperor Charles V, claimed that this magnificent metropolis died after the wars of conquest and that, with the construction of buildings that represented the power of the Crown and the Church, …