This book makes it clear that the vast majority of the history of "Mexico and Central America" has nothing to do with Europeans or anything "Latin American."Many readers may be surprised (but really it's just common sense) to learn that we Indigenous people of "Mexican" descent do not call ourselves "Mesoamericans," a term coined by a white Westerner, Paul Kirchoff, as this book makes clear.
Nevertheless, this book is the best general history of "Mexico" (itself another Euro-Iberian/American creation, twice over: 1821 and 1848).
This truly is a "pioneering synthesis" in that it takes the reader along a journey of one of the world's richest and truly original civilizations. Even more impressive when compared to the achievements of Europe: despite a 3 1/2 millenium lag time in agriculture, the peoples of Anahuac nevertheless constructed a monumental and highly sophisticated civilization, rivalling (and often dwarfing) those of Christendom at the same time.
**Compare Western Europe in the Neolithic Age to Mexico in it's own "Neolithic Age": the disparity of achievement is truly embarrassing to anyone holding onto notions of "European cultural superiority." Yikes, what a difference!
Don't take my word on it, read the Spaniards' own first-hand accounts on it!
Considering the lack of metallurgy in the land until after 800 AD, it is truly astonishing to behold the prolific construction of massive temple-pyramids and sophisticated cities across Anahuac.
Our people called the land Anahuac (accent placed on purpose), meaning "the land between the waters" in the still-pervasive Nahuatl language. Just as there is something historically known as "Christendom" or "Western Civilization"
(oddly enough, both are based upon non-Western achievements in Sumeria and Egypt!),
even more so is there the historical justification for the term "Anahuac Civilization" (built upon the home-grown achievements of Mexico, and not outsiders as in the case of Europe/Christendom).
** This last statement is probably the most important thing that the reader will come away with from Professor Coe's book.
As the reader of both of the recent editions of "Mexico" and "The Maya" will also learn, there was a unitary and common cultural matrix which connected and sustained all the cultures of "Mexico" and "Central America" down to Costa Rica. The divisions were far more political than cultural, just as in "Christendom" or the the modern European world.
(At the time of the Spanish Invasion, Nahuatl was spoken almost everywhere, just as many modern Europeans often speak English in addition to their own languages.)
The so-called "U.S. Southwest" must necessarily be includied in this epic unfolding of civilization, as is made abundantly clear in Coe's 5th edition.
Present-day political borders and archeolgical abstractions of our presnt time get in the way of understanding this dramatic story. Post-European Invasion divisions are not the way to understand this history, just as British imperial definitions do not do justice to the understanding of the Irish people.
(One should understand an apple on an apple's terms, not an orange's!)
I have noticed an interesting trend among "Westerners" to treat the Maya as some New Age plaything along the lines of Fung Sheui and Yoga, projecting their own fanciful wishes upon the people, mutating them into a pseudo-Greek/Hellenistic carbon copy that can easily be played with like a Dream Catcher and a Buddhist wind chime.
These "Fast Food Mayanists" will be disappointed to learn that the Maya historically been "Mexicanized" by the all-pervasive influence of that central Mexican juggernaut: Teotihuacan.
Yes, the Maya did not live in a vaccuum, and their achievements were built on the achievements of the Olmec of southeastern Mexico.
Of course, the Maya deserve their place as the people who made the greatest achievements in our Anahuac Civiization.
And the reader will find that this is truly a story of a common civilization unfolding across the land (branches off the same Olmec tree), unified in religios outlook (with regional modifications just as in Europe), religious systems, architecture, diet, dysnaties, and much more.
(Keep in mind that Copan--the Classic Maya's greatest city-- was revoltionized with a 400-year Classic-period dynasty by a central Mexican from Teotihuacan: Yax Kuk Mo.
Also, no Post-Classic Maya dysnasty worth its salt would fail to claim descent from the Toltec of central Mexico.)
Truly, our people of Anahuac are in the equivalent of Europe's Dark Ages (Middle Ages) where we have lost our way, but are now emerging out of the darkness, as anyone with a cursory interest in the current "Indigenous Renaissance" will discover both in Mexico, Central America, and yes, the US Southwest.
My only gripe with the book is Coe's insistence on the "gods" school of thought, when it was clear (he states it himself) that the Aztecs possessed a monotheistic state religion with ONE GOD (yes you read that correctly): Ometeotl....and for the Maya this was called "Hunab-Ku."
Same concept.
For some reason, Westerners are readily able to accept the concept of a multi-facted God (trinity), along with deified Saints, antagonistic demons, Mary the Mother of God, and Satan...and still declare to be "Monotheists!"
The Aztec and Maya "gods" are the innumerable names and faces of one God: physical forces of the Universe, comprised of a Divine Embrace of Material and Spirit. Just as the true student of Hinduism will learn that all the Hindu gods are really manifestations of a unitary God.
If only that point had been stressed a little more in the book...
The reader would also do well to keep in mind that all this rich and impressive civilization is only recently been gleaned from what are it's "leftovers": 95% of the astronomical almanacs and encyclopedias were burned by the Spaniards, by their own admission.
What other wonders went up in those flames?!
This is a fascinating history that reads like a real-life detective story. Buy the book!
