An Affectionate Portrait Of Southern Mexico And Its 3000 Year Old Culture. "This engrossing study of southern Mexico, an area fabulous for what it has already yielded to devoted archaeologists, haunting for what it has not yet revealed, centers about the Zapotec as the matrix of the Oaxaca peoples and builders of a glorious ancient culture. First we come to know the peoples of Oaxaca as they are today- the fifteen tribes, their fiestas and ways of life, their cities. Then we travel back in the vertical time of the Indians to trace the possible routes that led to the building of Monte Alban and other sites of ancient civilizations, surmise the reign of the Zapotec to its checking by the Aztec, to the acceptance of the Spaniards as deliverers from the Aztecs and allies against the Mixtecs, and see the consummation of the Zapotec heritage in the person of Benito Juarez, the great and progressive hero of Mexican unification. A fruitful approach to a fascinating research area, this achieves the vertical time of the Indians in showing the unity and change of past and present and gives the reader an insight into the theories research evokes and the facts it assures."-Kirkus Reviews