Exposing the Maya focuses on the works of 19th-century photographers Désiré Charnay, Alice and Augustus Le Plongeon, Teobert Maler, Alfred Maudslay and Adela Breton, all of whom were masters of their craft and travelled extensively to sites in Mexico and Central America. The over 100 selected images in this volume, together with nearly 40 additional contextual images featuring sketches from travel journals, hand-coloured drawings, prints, and maps, are combined with the photographers’ own words found in their published writings, journals and letters to provide insight into their methods, context for their images, and capture the realities of field work in Mesoamerica. Accessible and highly illustrated, Exposing the Maya features rare and important early photographs of the archaeological ruins and remains of the great Mayan and Aztec civilizations of Mesoamerica, from an age that witnessed the evolution of photographic techniques and brought to life the long-faded murals and decoration of these ruins. This is an absorbing story of incredible journeys, the challenging conditions under which these pioneering photographers produced their images, and how they perceived the remnants of these ancient indigenous cultures in modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.

The history of the early Americas is a story of before and after, defined and divided by a pivotal moment of contact between two distinct cultures. On the European side it is a tale of exploration, high-stakes treasure-seeking, and conquest. For indigenous Americans--including the Maya, the Nahua, the Taino, and the Wari--it is the beginning of the end, a violent saga of disease, enslavement, and the loss of languages and rituals. This collision of cultures comes to life in the manuscripts, maps, archaeological objects, and rare books that make up the collection of early American treasures in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Collecting for a New World: Treasures of the Early Americas relates these encounters through vivid illustrations and interpretive descriptions of more than sixty rare and priceless items. In describing for the first time the journeys of the objects themselves--via African shipwrecks, secret meetings on airstrips, discoveries in castle libraries, and journeys into unknown archaeological sites hidden deep in the jungles of Guatemala--curator John Hessler reveals the role played by private collectors, whose knowledge, vision, and--in many cases, philanthropy--contribute so significantly to the collective understanding and interpretation of history and culture.