What maps could not hold. How academic arrogance and colonial bias buried lost civilizations twice

For two centuries, Western scholars declared the tropics incapable of sustaining complex societies. Dense forests, poor soils, and shifting agriculture supposedly prevented urban development. The evidence lay under their feet. This book reconstructs the intellectual history of a profound failure-how disciplinary blind spots, racial assumptions, and institutional inertia caused generations of archaeologists to overlook entire urban systems.