
Few images hold an active claim on the imaginations of countless
generations, but the Plumed Serpent, or Quetzalcoatl, has endured
through 5,000 years of Mesoamerican history. Visualized as part bird
and part snake and also in human form, this benevolent god remained a
potent symbol of creation from the time of the ancient Olmec to the
Mexican revolution. When Hernán Cortes arrived in his "New Spain" in
1519, the Aztec believed he might embody the Plumed Serpent. Four
hundred years later, Quetzalcoatl's image was invoked in the
revolutionary art of muralist Diego Rivera. It also took root ten years
ago in the fertile imagination of seasoned biographer Neil Baldwin when
he toured the archaeological sites of Mexico. At first simply reacting
to the dearth of informative guidebooks, Baldwin resolved to unearth
the more profound significance of some of the stone carvings he puzzled
over at the ruins of Uxmal and Chichén Itzá. As his travels and reading
broadened, Baldwin set his sights on the Plumed Serpent - a myth - as the
subject of his latest biography. Enlivened with photographs of ancient
sites, modern murals, and historical documents throughout, Legends of
the Plumed Serpent is an erudite tour of the archaeological treasures
of Mexico, an unusual biography of a myth, and a detailed cultural
history.