She graduated summa cum laude from Bryn Mawr College and received a Ph.D. in comparative history from Rutgers University.
[6] During this time, she analyzed the Nahuatl historical annals from the 16th and 17th centuries, written by the Nahuas (or Aztecs) in their own language, using the Latin alphabet taught to them by Spanish friars for the purpose of reading the Bible to more easily convert them to Christianity.
These texts were considered dubious sources by Western readers and historians for many years, in part because of their lack of overt chronicity and contradictory repetition.
However, the repetition of the same story within the annals represented a way of Aztec history-telling, in which a series of speakers presented their own perception of an event, a battle, a marriage, etc.
The translation of these polyphonous annals, written by the sons and grandsons of those alive during the Spanish invasion who remembered their youth as well of the stories of their ancestors, formed the basis for Townsend's book Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs.