This book is the first comprehensive study and reinterpretation of the unique arts of Teotihuacan, including architecture, sculpture, mural painting, and ceramics. Comparing the arts of Teotihuacan - not previously judged "artistic" - with those of other ancient civilizations, Esther Pasztory demonstrates how they created and reflected the community's ideals.

Pasztory argues that, unlike the art of other Mesoamerican groups, the art of Teotihuacan refrains from glorifying rulers because its people wished to create the image of an integrated community. Instead their art glorifies nature and the supernatural and emphasizes egalitarian rather than aristocratic values. Pasztory identifies a great goddess who presided over this construction of civic harmony.

Teotihuacan: An Experiment in Living is a portrait of a culture that made no portraits, a reinterpretation of a culture that left no texts interpreting itself. Nineteen color and seventy-seven black-and-white illustrations accompany the text.