"Vintage Paredes—at once erudite and clear, scholarly and accessible.... It could serve the general reader as an interesting, accessible introduction to this unique Texas scholar who, in Bauman's words, 'has produced the most important and influential scholarship of our generation on the folklore of Greater Mexico in general and the Lower Border in particular.' ...The newly published collection of essays reflects the range and diversity of his work: ribald jokes and ethnic slurs, the rise and fall of the corrido, machismo in the United States and Mexico, how anthropologists and other scholars are led astray by their informants, the clash of cultures in the Rio Grande Valley today."

—Texas Observer

In an illustrious career spanning over forty years, Américo Paredes has often set the standard for scholarship and writing in folklore and Chicano studies. In folklore, he has been in the vanguard of important theoretical and methodological movements. In Chicano studies, he stands as one of the premier exponents.

Paredes's books are widely known and easily available, but his scholarly articles are not so familiar or accessible. To bring them to a wider readership, Richard Bauman has selected eleven essays that eloquently represent the range and excellence of Paredes's work. The hardcover edition of Folklore and Culture was published in 1993. This paperback edition will make the book more accessible to the general public and more practical for classroom use.