"Suppose a fleet of Mexican ships had sailed across the Atlantic in 1519 touched at the Canaries, had a look at Madeira, picked up some beer and pneumonia in the Azores (just as Columbus's expedition apparently picked up syphilis and tobacco in Cuba), and then returned to Veracruz. Could we really say that they discovered Europe?".

"The author argues that there were more similarities between ancient Mexico and old Europe than most people suppose, making the Spanish "discovery" of Mexico redundant. The Mexicans could not, of course, have sailed across the Atlantic, having developed only canoes for fishing and modest transportation. But they had kings, noblemen, priests, taxes, laws and many other cultural developments that paralleled societies in the Old World.

The difference of real importance was the Spanish capacity to wonder what was happening across the ocean and to travel there to see it for themselves." "This volume is the first in a series of books published in conjunction with a lecture and discussion. This series is held under the auspices of the Frick Collection in New York entitled Anshen Transdisciplinary Lectureships in Art, Science and the Philosophy of Culture."--BOOK JACKET.