The "Historia general" is the product one of the most remarkable social-science research projects ever conducted. It is not unique as a chronicle of encounters with the new world and its people, but it stands out due to Sahagún's effort to gather information about a foreign culture by querying people and perspectives from within that culture. "The scope of the Historia’s coverage of contact-period Central Mexico indigenous culture is remarkable, unmatched by any other sixteenth-century works that attempted to describe the native way of life.” Foremost in his own mind, Sahagún was a Franciscan missionary, but he may also rightfully be given the title of father of American Ethnography.