Description
This Very Short Introduction employs the disciplines of history, religious studies, and anthropology as it illuminates the complexities of Aztec life. Readers meet a people highly skilled in sculpture, astronomy, city planning, poetry, and philosophy, who were also profoundly committed to
cosmic regeneration through the thrust of the ceremonial knife and through warfare. Davíd Carrasco looks beyond Spanish accounts that have colored much of the Western narrative to let Aztec voices speak about their origin stories, the cosmic significance of their capital city, their methods of child
rearing, and the contributions women made to daily life and the empire. Carrasco discusses the arrival of the Spaniards, contrasts Aztec mythical traditions about the origins of their city with actual urban life in Mesoamerica, and outlines the rise of the Aztec empire. He also explores Aztec
religion, which provided both justification for and alternatives to warfare, sacrifice, and imperialism, and he sheds light on Aztec poetry, philosophy, painting, and especially monumental sculpture and architecture. He concludes by looking at how the Aztecs have been portrayed in Western thought,
art, film, and literature as well as in Latino culture and arts.
Author: David Carrasco
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 12/14/2011
Pages: 152
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.25lbs
Size: 6.70h x 4.30w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9780195379389
ISBN10: 0195379381
BISAC Categories:
- History | Latin America | Mexico
- History | Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
- History | Europe | Medieval
cosmic regeneration through the thrust of the ceremonial knife and through warfare. Davíd Carrasco looks beyond Spanish accounts that have colored much of the Western narrative to let Aztec voices speak about their origin stories, the cosmic significance of their capital city, their methods of child
rearing, and the contributions women made to daily life and the empire. Carrasco discusses the arrival of the Spaniards, contrasts Aztec mythical traditions about the origins of their city with actual urban life in Mesoamerica, and outlines the rise of the Aztec empire. He also explores Aztec
religion, which provided both justification for and alternatives to warfare, sacrifice, and imperialism, and he sheds light on Aztec poetry, philosophy, painting, and especially monumental sculpture and architecture. He concludes by looking at how the Aztecs have been portrayed in Western thought,
art, film, and literature as well as in Latino culture and arts.
Author: David Carrasco
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 12/14/2011
Pages: 152
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.25lbs
Size: 6.70h x 4.30w x 0.40d
ISBN13: 9780195379389
ISBN10: 0195379381
BISAC Categories:
- History | Latin America | Mexico
- History | Indigenous Peoples of the Americas
- History | Europe | Medieval
About the Author
Davíd Carrasco is the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard University. For his scholarship in Mesoamerican religions and his work on Mexican American culture he received the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle.