Daily Life of the Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth (The Daily Life Through History Series)

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Daily Life of the Aztecs: People of the Sun and Earth (The Daily Life Through History Series)
David Carrasco,Scott Sessions | 2008-09-30 00:00:00 | Hackett Pub Co | 304 | Central America
Based on the most recent archaeological discoveries, this volume offers a balanced interpretation of the complex relationships between Aztec cultural practices, social order, and religious myths and symbols. In addition to examining such topics as the ancient Aztec calendar, commerce, art, and human sacrifice, Carrasco considers the impact and influence Aztec culture continues to have on modern Mexican society. Heavily illustrated, this book also includes a chronology of Central Mexico, a glossary, and a selected bibliography.
Reviews
The Aztecs themselves are incredibly fascinating and "Daily Life of the Aztecs" does a good job of explicating Aztec culture for a Western point of view. The detailed information that Carrasco and Sessions give in the book surprised me somewhat since I assumed that primary documents or unbiased secondary accounts would be hard to come by. Content-wise this is an excellent introduction into pre-Columbian Aztec culture and appropriate for young people too thanks to its simple language. However, the editing of the book is appalling because of the sheer amount of spelling errors. I was also put off by Carrasco and Sessions' attempts to be understanding of the ceremonial practices they presented in the book, reminding the audience more than once that we should all try to be sympathetic of the culture even though it is hard for a modern person to sympathize with the sacrifice of 10,000 humans for the purpose of building a temple, or child mutilation and sacrifice for example. I would recommend this as an introductory textbook for middle- or high-schoolers, though perhaps not for general interest since its illustrations are few, its language childish, and its spelling errors aggravating.

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