Part I of this book is devoted to the explorers and conquistadors, the wonders and horrors of the first encounters, the great civilization of the Aztecs laid in ruins, and the strangeness of the simpler Indians to the north. In Part II are accounts by those who had to deal with the Indians as traders or missionaries, statesmen or soldiers, and who struggled with problems of culture difference and the meaning of race. Part III takes up the task of rescuing records. The contribution of this period was a series of volumes in which an infinite wealth of strange detail found publication. In Part IV, we show how the organization of voluntary effort shaped the future development of American anthropology. Part V includes the writers who laid the groundwork of anthropological theory.

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