Aby M. Warburg (1866–1929) is recognized not only as one of the century’s preeminent art and Renaissance historians but also as a founder of twentieth-century methods in iconology and cultural studies in general. Warburg’s 1923 lecture, first published in German in 1988 and now available in the first complete English translation, offers at once a window on his career, a formative statement of his cultural history of modernity, and a document in the ethnography of the American Southwest. This edition includes thirty-nine photographs, many of them originally presented as slides with the speech, and a rich interpretive essay by the translator.

Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America translates Aby M. Warburg's seminal study of the "serpent ritual" of the Hopi people, which grew out of a trip to the American Southwest undertaken by Warburg in 1895-1896.

Aby M. Warburg (1866-1929) is recognized not only as one of the century's preeminent art and renaissance historians but also as a founder of twentieth-century methods in iconology and cultural studies in general. Warburg's 1923 lecture, first published in German in 1988 and now available in the first complete English translation, offers at once a window on his career, a formative statement of his cultural history of modernity, and a document in the ethnography of the American Southwest. This edition includes thirty-nine photographs, many of them originally presented as slides with the speech, and a rich interpretive essay by the translator. The presentation grew out of Warburg's 1895 encounter with the Hopi Indians, an experience he claimed generated his theory of the Renaissance. In this powerfully written piece, Warburg investigates the relationships among ethnography, iconography, and cultural studies to develop a multicultural history of modernity. As an independent scholar in Hamburg, Warburg led the intellectual circle that included Erwin Panofsky and Ernst Cassirer, pioneers in the investigation of cultural history through the analysis of visual art and the interpretation of symbols. When Warburg wrote this exposition, however, he was a mental patient in a Kreuzlingen sanatorium. Warburg's vulnerable state of mind lends urgency and passion to his discussion of human rationality and cultural demons.

Aby M. Warburg (1866–1929) is recognized not only as one of the century’s preeminent art and Renaissance historians but also as a founder of twentieth-century methods in iconology and cultural studies in general. Warburg’s 1923 lecture, first published in German in 1988 and now available for the first time in English translation, Michael Steinberg offers offers at once a window on his career, a formative statement of his cultural history of modernity, and a document in the ethnography of the American Southwest. This edition includes thirty-nine photographs, many of them originally presented as slides with the speech, and a rich interpretive essay by the translator. Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America translates Warburg’s seminal study of the “serpent ritual” of the Hopi people, which grew out of a trip to the American Southwest undertaken by Warburg in 1895–1896.

Beginning about 1900, tourism greatly increased in the American Southwest, chiefly a response to the combined promotional efforts of the Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey Company. Postcard images of Southwestern Native Americans in particular became a mainstay of a widespread advertising campaign to promote the region to potential travelers. Postcards also quickly became popular with visitors as collectibles and for expedient communications with friends and family back home. In New Mexico, hundreds of published images portrayed the beauty of the Pueblo villages, as well as views of economic and domestic activities, arts and crafts, and religious aspects of the various Pueblo communities in the northern part of the state.

The peaceable Pueblo Indians seemed an unlikely people to rise emphatically and successfully against the Spanish Empire. For eighty-two years the Pueblos had lived under Spanish domination in the northern part of present-day New Mexico. The Spanish administration had been led not by Coronado’s earlier vision of god but by a desire to convert the Indians to Christianity and eke a living from the country north of Mexico. The situation made conflict inevitable, with devastating results. Robert Silverberg writes: "While the missionaries flogged and even hanged the Indians to save their souls, the civil authorities enslaved them, plundered the wealth of their cornfields, forced them to abide by incomprehensible Spanish laws." A long drought beginning in the 1660s and the accelerated raids of nomadic tribes contributed to the spontaneous revolt to the Pueblos in August 1680. How the Pueblos maintained their independence for a dozen years in plain view of the ambitious Spaniards and how they finally expelled the Spanish is the exciting story of The Pueblo Revolt. Robert Silverberg’s descriptions yield a rich picture of the Pueblo culture.