The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 81, July 1977 - April, 1978 Page: 485

Book Reviews

The shorter second segment is the most varied in nature. Michael D.
Coe studies Olmec and Maya relationships with the effect of radically
revising his own earlier statement that the Olmec were perhaps directly
ancestral to the Maya, a theory he no longer proposes. Gareth W. Lowe's
"The Mixe-Zoque as Competing Neighbors of the Early Lowland
Maya" is in some ways the most stimulating paper in the book, present-
ing a sweeping and imaginatively conceived reconstruction of Olmec,
Mixe-Zoque, and early Maya interrelationships in southern and western
Chiapas, that greatly important but still imperfectly understood Late
Preclassic melting pot of Mesoamerica. Jacinto Quirarte's "Early Art
Styles of Mesoamerica and Early Classic Maya Art" is at times virtually
a precis for a stylistic and iconographic analysis which needs more space
and many more illustrations. It indicates the problem of adapting to a
basically verbal format material strongly dependent on visually oriented
demonstration.
As is inevitable in any collection, there are variations of quality in
both substance and argument in The Origins of Maya Civilization, but
the overall level is high, and there is much here to be learned as well as
much which should provoke questioning and revision of thinking on
the subject.
The Dallas Museum of Fine Arts JOHN LUNSFORD
A History of the Mexican-American People. By Julian Samora and Pa-
tricia Vandel Simon. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1977. Pp. vii+238. Illustrations, appendices, index. $9.95.)
The typical failure of texts and courses in United States history to
deal seriously with this country's minority peoples has been much em-
phasized in recent years. This clear, well-written account of Mexican-
American history is an important step in the right direction. Designed
as a textbook, it is appropriate for both college and high school stu-
dents in courses such as United States History, Chicano History, and the
history of the American Southwest.
Part One focuses on the settlement of Mexico by the Spaniards and
on the pre-nineteenth-century movement of people from Mexico into
what is now the United States. This northward movement is examined
further in Part Two with its attention to nineteenth-century conflict
between the Spaniards and a host of other interests such as Indian tribes,
Britain, France, Russia, and especially the United States. Particular at-
tention is devoted to the movement of United States citizens into Span-

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