Now available in paperback for the first time since its publication in 1980, The Quiché Mayas of Utatlán offers a full account of the Quichés, the most powerful Maya group in the Guatemala highlands at the time of the Spanish Conquest.

The Quichés ruled from the city they built on the highland plains, to which they gave the splendid name K’umarcaaj, but which became known throughout the Maya world as Utatlán.

Robert M. Carmack re-creates the setting of this empire, and peoples it with the rulers, priests, warriors, allies, and travelers who gave it life. He describes the fall of Utatlán to the conquistadors, and the Quichés’ efforts to retain a semblance of their political structure and belief system. Drawing upon archaeological discoveries and native and Spanish written documents, Carmack has produced a work that is essential to understanding the Quiché people and indispensable to a full appreciation of the immortal work the Popol Vuh, the “first book of the New World.”