Burning the Maya Books: Cultural Carnage and Survival - In the 1560s, Spanish invaders in Yucatán burned hundreds of Maya books, an act of unspeakable cultural genocide.  Only a few examples of these irreplaceable documents have survived, but the Maya people kept secret copies of what they could remember from their lost treasures.  We will discuss the history of the destruction and the surviving records.  Especially in our library, we recognize that the long history of suppressing books continues even today. 

This illustrated lecture is for everyone interested in local history.  Bob Temple is the author of After the Meteor: Surprising History in Yucatán, the only general, popular history of Yucatán in English, now available in its third edition.