Book reviews: Lessons and alarm bells, past and future

Years ago, when Saskatoon writer Robert Calder — now professor emeritus of English at the University of Saskatchewan — was on a winter holiday in the Yucatán Peninsula, he came across a curious story that cried out for examination and illumination. In 1519 the conquistador Hernan Cortes landed on Cozumel Island off the Yucatan and “(o)ut of the jungle emerged a Spaniard, Jeronimo de Aguilar, who spoke of his seven years of captivity in a Mayan tribe and of his great joy