Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca: His Account, His Life, and the Expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez (review)
Whatever criticisms one might have of this or that contributor, it quickly becomes clear that the publisher's shortcomings were far more serious. For example, the various chapters deal less than fully successfully with the First Nations or Fourth World perspectives of contemporary native social movements, although Schryer for Central Mexico, Romero Frizzi for Oaxaca, and Lovell for the highland Maya make valiant attempts at last minute mentions or inclusions. But with most chapters written over five years ago, and with few works published since the mid1990s visible in either text or bibliographic essays, the project's delay looms larger than any authorial limitations. This inexplicable delay is even openly recognized at the beginning of Susan Deans-Smith's chapter on the Gulf Coast (p. 274), a chapter which unfortunately reads as something akin to an annotated bibliography in text form, quite unlike any of the other chapters written as free-standing essays followed by short bibliographic guides.