Includes bibliographical references (p. [227]-232) and index.

Earliest Native American Art -- Paleoindian -- Archaic -- Earliest Pottery: Colombia and Ecuador -- Cotton Preceramic: Peru -- Early Formative -- First High Cultures -- Olmec of Mesoamerica -- Post-Olmec Mesoamerica -- Chavin, Peru -- Paracas, Peru -- The Classic Civilizations -- Nazca, Peru -- Moche, Peru -- La Tolita-Tumaco, Ecuador-Colombia -- Recuay, Peru -- Carchi-Narino, Ecuador-Colombia -- Classic Quimbaya, Colombia -- San Agustin, Colombia -- Cocle, Panama -- Lower Central American Sculpture -- Teotihuacan, Mexico -- Monte Alban, Mexico -- Veracruz, Mexico -- Maya, Guatemala-Belize and Neighboring Mexico and Honduras -- Empires and Integration -- Toltec Nahua, Mexico -- Toltec Maya, Mexico -- Mixtec, Mexico -- Chorotega, Costa Rica-Nicaragua -- Aztec, Mexico -- Intermediate Area Chiefdoms -- Taino, West Indies -- Tairona, Colombia -- Chibcha, Colombia -- Manteno, Ecuador -- Tiwanaku, Bolivia -- Wari, Peru -- Sican, Peru -- Chimu, Peru -- Inca, Chile to Ecuador -- Colonial Art of the American Viceroyalties -- Assimilated Pre-Columbian Traditions -- Iberian Traditions -- Early Renaissance with Gothic Survivals -- Mannerism -- Purism -- Baroque -- Rococo -- Neoclassicism -- Non-Hispanic Artistic Survivals -- Art After Independence -- Romanticism -- Academic Realism -- Modernismo -- Mexican Mural Renaissance -- Abstraction -- Surrealism -- Recent Art.

Unique in its linking of pre-Columbian and Hispanic cultures, the book encompasses art forms ranging from sculpture, pottery, and painting to architecture, and cultures ranging from the Ice Age to Classic civilizations, Native empires, and the colonial period of American viceroyalties to independence and the twentieth century. Relating the arts to the life and politics of each age, Scott addresses the major media, styles, and artists that defined each period, placing special emphasis on the areas that were the centers of high cultures and analyzing distinctive works from each, such as the Inca architecture at Cuzco and the great murals of Mexico.