The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations

Infobox Book
name = The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations
title_orig = Le Rêve mexicain ou la pensée interrompue
translator = Teresa Lavender Fagan


image_caption =
author = Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = France
language = French
series =
subject = Mesoamerican History
genre =
publisher = Chicago University Press (transl.)
pub_date = 1988
english_pub_date = 1993
media_type =
pages = 232
isbn = 978-0226110028
oclc =
preceded_by =
followed_by =

"The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations" (French: "Le Rêve mexicain ou la pensée interrompue") is an essay by J.M.G. Le Clézio. It was originally published in 1988 by the "Folio Essais" collection, with the English translation, by Teresa Lavender Fagan, published by the Chicago University Press in 1993.

In the essay, Le Clézio conducts an inquiry into the brutal disappearance of the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica in the 16th century, particularly the end of the Mexica civilization at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors. The author analyses the personalities of characters such as Hernán Cortés, La Malinche, Moctezuma II, Cuauhtémoc, and other key players in the conquest of Mesoamerica. He refers extensively to the descriptions offered by Bernal Díaz del Castillo in his "Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España" in analysing the events. He imagines what might have happened if if the native populations had not been reduced to silence by brutality, and what their impact on western civilization might have been. Understanding that the West holds both economic and cultural sway over the contemporary world because of the colonization of America, he wonders how the cultural life of Mesoamerica – particularly that of the Aztecs – would have evolved if the arrival of the Europeans had not decimated the indigenous socieites through war, disease and slavery.

External links

*ISBN 978-0226110028
* [http://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2008/10/09/the_mexican_dream_by_jmg_le_cl.html "The Mexican Dream" by JMG Le Clézio] University of Chicago Press