Among the native-language documents written by the Nahuas of central Mexico after Spanish contact, the annals genre gave them the freest rein in expressing themselves. The premier practitioner of the Nahuatl annals form was a writer of the early seventeenth century now known as Chimalpahin. Until recently, attention went primarily to his writings about precontact events.
Now Chimalpahin's equally important writings about his own time have begun to come to the fore; the present volume is the first English edition of Chimalpahin's largest work, written during the first two decades of the seventeenth century. The great immediate value of the material is that it shows the Mexico City of the author's time, both Spanish and indigenous, as a cultured Nahua viewed it, and reveals the Nahuatl social and cultural vocabulary of that era. Among entries reporting run-of-the-mill events, the annals contain much color and humanity.
The edition features a faithful transcription and a very readable translation. The apparatus includes telling new analysis of both language and content.