The Aztecs left a confused mass of traditions concerning the Toltecs, who they regarded as their great predecessors. Davies tried to sift out what may be historically reliable from the purely mythical, that which grew in the telling, and the simply confused; and correlate it with what archaeology can tell us.

The results are ingenious but do not inspire great confidence in their accuracy. The tendency since Davies wrote seems to be ever greater pessimism that anything reliable can be extracted at all. I found the book interesting enough, though.