AZTEC CIVILIZATION

Clendinnen , Inga . Aztecs : An Interpretation . New York : Cambridge University Press , 1991

Inga Clendinnen , born in 1934 , is an Australian anthropologist and author , historian and academic . She has taught history for many years won several awards , and authored six books , including Ambivalent Conquests : Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan , 1517-1570 (1987 Aztecs : An Interpretation (1991 Reading the Holocaust (1998 Tiger 's Eye - a Memoir (2000 True Stories (2000 and Dancing with Strangers Europeans and Australians at First Contact (2004

In Aztecs : An Interpretation , Clendinnen provides a brilliant interpretation of the religious traditions

as well as the culture of the Aztecs . The author 's writing style makes this book a rather interesting read , indeed . What is more , although Clendinnen 's interpretations of the Aztec traditions and culture are believable to the reader for whom the subject is novel , the author at no point makes the reader believe that her interpretations are the only correct ones . The book is not based on objective research , and hence there is no question about the absolute validity and reliability of Clendinnen 's research . Rather , the book is interesting for anybody who would want to reflect on the Aztecs given the information that scholars have already studied and interpreted about the Aztec culture and practices . All the same , it is a given that these interpretations may or may not be correct . Thus , Clendinnen states

Historians of remote places and peoples are the romantics of the human sciences , Ahabs

pursuing our great white whale , dimly aware that the whole business is , if coolly considered

rather less than reasonable . We will never catch him and don 't much want to : it is our own

limitations of thought , of understandings , of imagination we test as we quarter those strange

waters (275

Aztecs begins from the historical and chronological perspective , with the migration of the Mexica or the Aztec people from the north down to the Valley of Mexico . The book goes on to describe the rise of the Mexica people from an insignificant tribe that was almost wholly annexed , to an established community that was brutal as well as imperial in nature . The Aztecs had become quite powerful , despite their humble beginnings

Next , the book focuses on the Tenochtitlan to examine its socioeconomic structure . It is at this juncture that Aztecs helps to enhance the reader 's own interpretation of the Mexica culture . The place of the Aztecs within the pan-Mesoamerican framework is further brought into focus . After establishing the social as well as the historical context , however , the author takes the reader to a thorough examination of the social and the religious roles of the Mexica peoples in addition to the meaning of ritual in the Mexica society . This is indeed , the central aim of the book : to help the reader understand the function of ritual among the Aztecs

Interpretation of human sacrifices in the Mexica tradition takes a special place in the book . To my interest in the Biblical traditions this interpretation adds special value , given the general scriptural...