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Unfinished Conversations: Mayas and Foreigners between Two Wars

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This book succeeds on many levels. It is a travelogue, a history, a social study, and a prophesy. It follows the relationship of the great Mayanist, Sylvanius Morley, with the Maya of Quintana Roo. Showing both the political and personal motivations of both parties the work unfolds like a beautiful flower. It raises question both cosmological and profane. From the Mayan conception of the "end of days" to American and European political intervention in Latin American affairs this work is crucial to understanding how the Mayan maids, bartenders, taxi-drivers, et al, view us gingos as we run roughshod over the indigenous culture in places like Cancun. A bell-weather for cultural awareness and understanding.