Def essential and def thought provoking, and I love all the Precolumbian empires don't get me wrong. I feel like it should be read more. Doesn't mean I loved reading every section of it as far as the art of the words and the sentences and all that fun stuff. Good primer for thinking about all the fun historical questions, the poetry at the end is super interesting, a lot of the repetition or even sometimes mundane description of almost otherworldly events can hurt my enjoyment.