The Aztecs

The Aztecs

They were fearless warriors and ruthless conquerors, and by the 15th century the Aztecs had created a vast empire surpassed in size in the Americas only by the Incas in Peru. Now a fully revised third edition of Richard F. Townsend’s masterly study, The Aztecs, presents an expanded view of their history and cultural achievements.

Townsend describes the rise of Aztec civilization from its 12th-century Toltec origins, charting the four migrant groups—Chichimecs, Acolhua, Tepanecs and Mexica—who migrated into the Valley of Mexico in the 13th century and ultimately established the Aztec empire and its vast capital at Tenochtitlan, where Mexico City is today.

He also paints a detailed portrait of Aztec culture, exploring the everyday lives of kings and commoners and providing information on manufacturing, farming and trade; social and political organization and jurisprudence; the deities, myths, interlocking calendars and festivals, and the sacrificial rites of the Aztec religion; marriage, families, and the raising and schooling of children; and arts, crafts and architecture.

This new edition also draws on new evidence from ancient monuments at Teotihuacan, Xochicalco and Tula to offer insight on the Aztecs’ cultural inheritance, and places new emphasis on the significant roles played by individual Aztec leaders in the construction of empire not only through statecraft and conquest but in the building of farming systems, water-control projects and ceremonial centers. And it describes how a breakthrough in hieroglyphic decipherment has revealed that phonetic and pictographic elements combine in Aztec script in ways that recall the conventions of Classic Maya writing.

The history of the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, which began previous editions, now comes at the end of the book, and has been revised to present that account largely from the Aztec point of view. The facts, though, remain the same, as Hernán Cortéz and a mere 500 soldiers arrived in 1519, utterly defeated the feared king Motecuhzoma, and by 1521 had completely conquered the Aztec confederation of city-states with its population of 350,000. Townsend explains how the Spanish exploited the enmity between the Aztec conquerors and the neighboring native peoples they had subjugated, and ultimately concludes that the collapse of the Aztec Empire was as much an Indian revolt as it was a Spanish conquest.

With plentiful photographs, diagrams and illustrations, and drawing on archaeological discoveries, Spanish records and recent scholarship, The Aztecs provides a fascinating, definitive portrait of the violent yet sophisticated culture that played a key role in the formation of modern Mexico.

Softcover: 248 pages

Publisher: Thames & Hudson Inc. ( August 01, 2009 )

Item #: 22-4344

ISBN: 9780500287910

Product Dimensions: 6.125 x 9.5 x 0.0 inches

Product Weight: 23.0 ounces