Aztecs: An Interpretation - Hardcover

Clendinnen, Inga

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0521400937 ISBN 13: 9780521400930

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1991

Synopsis

Inga Clendinnen creates a vivid and dramatic picture of life in the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, once the nerve centre of the Aztec tribute empire. She explores the worlds of Aztec women, of priests and of warriors, in an extraordinary recreation of everyday life in the city. Contrasting the beauty and sophistication of Aztec culture with the savagery of human sacrifice, she attempts to explain the philosophy, rituals, and social structures that underpinned this remarkable empire.

About this title

About the Author:

fm.author_biographical_note1

From Library Journal:

Breakthroughs in historical topics most often come from discoveries of new texts or archaeological finds. Not so in this case. Here, rereading existing indigenous and Spanish documents (particularly the Florentine Codex of de Sahagun), as well as current scholarly literature, has yielded a riveting, fresh perspective on a seemingly exhausted topic, the pre-Columbian culture of the Aztecs of Mexico. Where previous authors have seen chronicles of empire building, the workings of economic systems, or reconstructions of social organization, Clendinnen finds tonalities of everyday life. How did the ordinary people of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital destroyed by Cortez, make sense of their world? How did the warriors, women, priests, and traders understand the brutal practice of human sacrifice for which Aztec society is notorious? The author's answers to these and other questions provide the general reader and specialist alike with a powerful, elegantly written interpretation that goes further than any yet in getting inside this extinct culture. It deserves a place on the shelf next to Jacques Soustelle ( Daily Life of the Aztecs , 1961) and Nigel Davies ( The Aztecs: A History , LJ 6/15/74).
- William S. Dancey, Ohio State Univ., Columbus
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0521400937
• ISBN 13: 9780521400930
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 414