The Mexican Imperial Dream: The Role of the State, the Civilian and Institutions of Tenochtitlan

Abstract

The Mexica in the Central Valley of Mexico witnessed the development, expansion and collapse of their empire in the space of only two hundred years. Although the Empire’s collapse was swift and thorough, suggesting a weak structure in the first place, the sophisticated political and ideological development and the whirlwind expansion of the Mexican state, suggests just the opposite. The imperial leadership at Tenochtitlan accomplished the loose organization of city-states that was empire by the coercive and manipulative ideological domination of its civilian populations. The state ideology or value system of the elite was a unique product of the political environment of Central Mexico and the predominance of violent confrontation in that environment.