animals are described in association with their behavior and natural conditions or habitat. The Nahua presented their information in a way consistent with their worldview. For modern readers, this combination of ways of presenting materials is sometimes contradictory and confusing. Other sections include data on minerals, mining, bridges, roads, types of terrain, and food crops. The Florentine Codex is one of the most remarkable social science research projects ever conducted. It is not unique as a chronicle of encountering the New World and its peoples, for there were others in this era. Sahagún's methods for gathering information from the perspective within a foreign culture were highly unusual for this time. He reported the worldview of people of Central Mexico as they understood it, rather than describing the society exclusively from the European perspective. "The scope of the Historia's coverage of contact-period Central Mexico indigenous culture is remarkable, unmatched by any other sixteenth-century works that attempted to describe the native way of life." Foremost in his own mind, Sahagún was a Franciscan missionary, but he may also rightfully be given the title as Father of American Ethnography. Editions General History of the Things of New Spain by Fray Bernardino de Sahagún: The Florentine Codex, at the World Digital Library online Bernardino de Sahagún, translated by Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble; The Florentine Codex : General History of the Things of New Spain, 12 volumes; University of Utah Press (January 7, 2002), hardcover, See also Aztec codices Colegio de Santa Cruz de Tlatelolco Bernardino de Sahagún Diego Durán References Aztec codices Mesoamerican codices Nahuatl literature 1569 books 16th-century illuminated manuscripts 1560s in Mexico 1569 in New Spain 16th century in the Aztec civilization History of New Spain