The Aztecs represent a complex, class-based civilization, characterized by culturally diverse practices encompassed by the Nahuatl-speaking peoples of the Basin of Mexico region and its surrounding areas. The subject of much misinformation, the clash between Aztec peoples and Spaniards, provoked by the Spanish invasion, gave rise to an immense number of written sources. Native-authored, hybrid, and Spanish-authored texts all must be carefully considered, but the translation of a still-growing number of texts in the Nahuatl language has provided insights Spanish-language texts cannot. Other kinds of evidence about the Aztecs and how their ideas and identities survived also exist, including material remains and ethnographic evidence. While the word “Aztec” is used in several ways, I use “Mexica” in this book for the peoples of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco, either “Excan tlatoloyan” (Tribunal of three) or “Triple Alliance” for the expansive confederation of the late Postclassic period, and “Aztec” for the linguistically and culturally related peoples of the Basin of Mexico region to highlight the variety of ethnicities that constituted Aztec peoples. A brief early history from the time of the migrations into the Basin of Mexico to the founding of Tenochtitlan by the Mexica, guided by their deity Huitzilopochtli, also is covered.

The nature of the cosmos and its maintenance are central issues in Mesoamerican philosophy. The correlative metaphysical systems of Mesoamerica, with their focus on interdependence, transformation, and continual creation, rely on particular views about the nature of the world and its operation that are covered in this chapter. The chapter covers the development of key concepts connected to creation and change, as well as the particular ways these are developed in creation stories across Mesoamerica. Creation stories serve an important purpose in Mesoamerican thought. They should not be thought of as only myth grounding the overall tradition and system, but also as discussions of the nature of being, change, and continual creation.

Different literary strategies tied to the peculiarities of the city itself have been used to write Mexico City. This is a roughly chronological attempt to understand the dialog between the materiality of the city and the mirrors literature has held to it. We first focus on distance as obstacle to reach Mexico City––both for Aztecs and later for the conquistadors–– but also allowing authors to encompass the whole city. Distance is embodied in the gaze of the traveler who discovers the city anew as does, for instance, Frances Calderón de la Barca. As the texts of these visitors prove, the city is not only extensional, it is always conditioned by the past, modeling, and shaping the present. Offering a total view of the city became more challenging as the 20th Century progressed. This however is achieved in the novel, from Federico Gamboa to Carlos Fuentes. After the 60’s, fiction tends more and more to partial accounts of the metropolis and non-fiction privileges moments when the city beats in unison, as exemplified by Elena Poniatowska´s work. Mexico City has been portrayed as an urban tsunami. Extensive areas remain largely absent from the citys literature and cultural production.