John Lloyd Stephens was an American explorer who wrote extensively about his travels in Europe, Asia and Central America. This book is the 1842 edition of his account of his travels through Mexico, British Honduras (now Belize) and Guatemala.

In 1839, Stephens had been appointed Special Ambassador to the United Provinces of Central America, a federation of former Spanish colonies between Mexico and Colombia. While Stephens was in the region, the country fell into civil war and dissolved into its constituent states (Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Costa Rica). This book is a useful account of the turbulent events of the period.

However, the book is mostly notable for Stephens’s observations of Mayan architecture. Travelling with the architect and draughtsman Frederick Catherwood, who supplied the drawings and lithographs that illustrate the work. The pair travelled to many prominent Maya sites in southern Mexico, Guatemala and Belize such as Copán, Palenque and Uxmal and later travelled through Yucatan. They claimed to have visited 44 sites. The findings made during this expedition helped to reintroduce Maya art to the world, and to confirm that such art and architecture was the product of an advanced Mesoamerican civilisation, not made by European or Asian people in exile as had previously been surmised.