Synopses & Reviews
In considering the extraordinary culture of the Aztecs of Mexico it is impossible to ignore the extravagance of their practice of the ritual killing of humans. Inga Clendinnen renders those killings intelligible through investigation of a wide field of social action: the routines, assumptions, and compelling experiences of daily life at all the emotional, moral, and aesthetic levels through which Aztecs sought to understand their world and identify its necessities.\[P\] The enquiry is first pursued through the provenance and techniques of management of the victims, seeking the various grounds for their acquiescence. The massive material solidity of the late imperial city is explored to illuminate Aztec notions of temporality and change. Clendinnen then gives close attention to specific social organizations, tracing their distinctive forms of internal cohesion with their attendant tensions, and their unobvious connections with other social structures. Clendinnen discusses the worlds of women, of warriors, of priests, and of commoners, showing us that the mundane aspects of their lives in fact often had tremendous significance. Similarly, a wide zone of \'art\' is investigated for its intimations of the sacred and the real. The whole culminates in an analysis and interpretation of high Aztec ritual and its meanings for participants and watchers alike.
Review
"...the book is beautifully written and provides thoughtful insights into how the Aztecs may have viewed the world, and particularly why the practice of human sacrifice played such a critical role in their lives." Latin American Research Review"This is an outstanding book, as rich in its reconstruction of social details as in its lucid analyses of the 'interior architecure' of the Aztec world...Clendinnen makes a wonderfully informative and illuminating contribution to our understanding of Aztec society. Her book deserves a wide readership, both as a stimulus to specialist debate and as a dramatic and eloquent introduction to the experience and beliefs of Aztec people." Times Higher Education Supplement"A riveting, fresh perspective on a seemingly exhausted topic, the pre-Columbian culture of the Aztecs of Mexico....Provide[s] the general reader and specialist alike with a powerful, elegantly written interpretation that goes further than any yet in getting inside this extinct culture." Library Journal"There is no other book quite like this one. It is probably the best presentation of the Aztec people, their culture, and their city from the point of view of the Aztecs themselves." Michael D. Coe, Yale University"[Inga Clendinnen's] Aztecs not only supersedes Jacques Soustelle's classic Daily Life of the Aztecs (1961) but also overturns most scholarly dicta about the Aztecs, from their honoring the elderly (on the contrary) to the role of sorcerers in society (far greater than was supposed)." Wilson Quarterly"A fascinating, imaginative and highly evocative reconstruction of life in Tenochtitlan....This is an outstanding book, as rich in its reconstruction of socal details as in its lurid analyses of the 'interior architecture' of the Aztec world. Reaching simultaneously into the lives of the Mexica and the blurred, hallucinatory spaces of their rituals, Clendinnen makes a wonderfully informative and illuminating contribution to our understanding of Aztec society. Her book deserves a wide readership, both as a stimulus to specialist debate and as a dramatic and eloquent introduction to the experience and belief of Aztec people." Times Literary Supplement"Professor Clendinnen, an eloquent writer, a brilliant historian, and a very creative thinker, has crafted an intelligent book that is both informative and truly engaging. Its insightful interpretations add significantly to our understanding of the Nahuatl-speaking peoples of ancient Mexico and to our 'feeling' for the complex and seemingly paradoxical civilization they strung between the extremes of aesthetic concern and ascetic sacrifice." J. Jorge Klor de Alva, Princeton University"Her book is a unique attempt to understand the ways in which Mexica people living in the capital city, Tenochtitlan, were actively engaged in a system that Western observers find almost unthinkable." Rosemary A. Joyce, Journal of Interdisciplinary History"[F]or a more comprehensive view of the Aztecs, this is the first truly suitable book, one that is both scholarly and accessible to the general reader....highly satisfactory." John Rosser, Kliatt"...by creatively reading rituals, Clendinnen vividly makes the preconquest Mexica world come to life and proposes a plausible interpretation of its inhabitant's beliefs." William and Mary Quarterly
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.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (365-387) and index.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements; Note; Epigraph; Introduction; Part I. The Place: 1. The city: time and place; 2. The city: integration and division; Part II. The People: 3. Victims; 4. Warriors, priests, merchants and makers; 5. The masculine self discovered; 6. Wives; 7. Mothers; 8. The female being revealed; Part III. The Sacred: 9. Art; 10. Artifacts; 11. Ritual Epilogue; 12. The city destroyed; A question of sources.