Review by Choice Review
Prize-winning historian Clendinnen has produced a remarkable extended essay on life and society, roles and rituals, and deities and art in Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec tribute empire. Clendinnen tries to portray the Aztecs from their own perspective and presents fascinating chapters on the city of Tenochtitlan, and the roles in Aztec culture of victims, warriors, priests, merchants, wives, mothers, aesthetics, and ritual. Repeatedly the book emphasizes the Aztec's view of the inherent insecurity of human existence. This sensitive, elegant, and erudite study draws heavily on The Florentine Codex, the 16th-century source that offers the most complete account available of Aztec life, but is also informed by recent anthropological literature. The 24 illustrations (some in color) complement the textual descriptions. Full bibliography, extensive notes. This work will appeal to general readers as well as to historians and anthropologists of ancient Mexico. All academic and public libraries should purchase it.-M. A. Burkholder, University of Missouri-St. Louis
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Well written and meticulously researched through contemporaneous sources dealing with life in the city of Tenochtitlan, this scholarly documentation of the life of the Aztecs seeks to "discover something of the distinctive tonalities of life as it was lived in the city of Tenochtitlan in the early sixteenth century on the eve of the Spanish conquest." From the initial description of the Aztec settlement and an overview of how the city came into being, Clendinnen unearths more subtle facets of Aztec society, delving into the intricate pattern of roles, rituals, and customs as they were "enacted in the last days of empire." Although Clendinnen admits that the destruction of the city of Tenochtitlan and the dispersal of its people necessarily limits the information available for study, she does a fine job of depicting the "unnerving discrepancy between the high decorum and fastidious social and aesthetic sensibility of the Mexican world and the massive carnality of the killings and dismemberings." ~--Ivy Burrowes
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review
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 (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
