"The African presence in ancient America"--Jacket subtitle.

"This catalogue was published by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on the occasion of the exhibition Olmec: Colossal Masterworks of Ancient Mexico"--Colophon.

Provides a complete overview of Olmec culture, its accomplishments and impact on later Mexcian civilizations.

Olmec Archaeology and Early Mesoamerica offers the most thorough and up-to-date book-length treatment of Olmec society and culture available.

Here is the story of America's oldest - and oddest - civilization, the Olmecs of the southern Mexican jungles. Virtually unknown to archaeologists until the early twentieth century, their true importance is only now being realized and shedding new light on how the Indian peoples of the Americas came to be here.

Masterly....The complexities of Mexico's ancient cultures are perceptively presented and interpreted.--Library Journal

Twenty-one papers on the Olmec were written for this volume in tribute to Matthew W. Stirling, "pioneer archaeologist, ethnologist, and the discoverer of the Olmec civilization."

Provides descriptions of one hundred books that have influenced world history, arranged chronologically from the "Epic of Gilgamesh," c. 2700-1500 B.C., to "A Brief History of Time," revised in 1998.