Mesoamerican archaeology is a little world by itself - I know, because I used to live in it. It has a very cosy relationship with museums and the "art" collectors who buy the objects that are looted from archaeological sites, which lie destroyed, torn into shreds under the forests all over Central America and Mexico. But it has almost no touch with reality any more. The things they say about the ancient Olmec are almost fantasy, because in truth we know so little about these people. Almost all the objects in this book were stolen from Mexico, ripped from the archaeological context that might tell us something about their real meaning. These are probably religious articles - we may never know. But imagine trying to reconstruct the rich life of rennaisance Italy by looking at reliquaries in Catholic churches! If you are still persuaded by the "mysterious Olmec" propaganda spouted by Coe and his looter buddies, go read Flannery & Marcus in the first 2000 issue of the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, and think it over.

The Olmec World is an amazing resource for those who study or have an appreciation of early Mesoamerican Art. At its most basic level The Olmec World is the catalogue of the 1996 Olmec Exhibition at the Art Museum at Princeton University the first comprehensive show of Olmec art in America. Drawing upon nearly all of the major Olmec museum collections in North America from Dunbarton Oaks to Princeton's own expansive holdings, the exhibition also drew heavily from many private collections never before shown to the general public. For instance, John Stokes' amazing collection of ceramic babies and jade masks are showcased in this catalogue. However, almost as impressive as the pictures are the essays in this collection. Michael Coe has done a marvelous job of soliticing and editing a myriad of papers on the mysterious Olmec.