David Freidel has been a Maya archaeologist for twenty years. He teaches at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Linda Schele was a well-known authority on Maya writing and art, and the co-author of many books on the Maya including The Blood of Kings and The Code of Kings. She died in 1998.
The classical Maya world of Yucatan and Guatemala (200-900 A.D.) was organized into 50 or more independent states. Literate, warlike kings, with names like Smoking-Frog, Lady Zac-Kuk, Bird-Jaguar and Lord Water, ruled through the myths and symbolism they shared with their people. As told in this vibrant sociopolitical tapestry by two Maya archeologists, Maya royal history unfolds as a story of war and expansion, machinations and revenge, ritual sacrifice and struggles for legitimacy. Much of this material is based on recently deciphered hieroglyphic texts and artifacts. Interweaving 250 illustrations with the narrative, Schele, a professor at the University of Texas, and Freidel, who teaches at Southern Methodist University, vividly conjure the Maya world of cyclical time and multiple levels of reality, a universe where all things are alive with meaning. History Book Club main selection; BOMC featured alternate; Macmillan Book Club and QPB alternates. (Oct.)
The mystique of the pre-Columbian Maya has prompted much speculation about the nature of this sophisticated people. With the recent breaking of their elaborate hieroglyphic code, Schele and Freidel, Mayan scholars of note, provide a new look at the Maya. Structured on sound scholarly principles, their presentation abounds in notes, references, indexes, and chronologies with profuse line-drawings of temple and other inscriptions. They devote a chapter to each of the major Mayan city-states. What makes this volume more accessible and of greater impact than the average scholarly study are the frequent vignettes of great events, kingly acts, etc., told dramatically, in a fictive but plausible style that allows the ancient Maya at last to speak for themselves. Recommended for informed laypersons, as well as specialist and YA readers. See also William Ferguson and others' Mesoamerica's Ancient Cities, reviewed in this issue, p. 122.--Ed.-- Jo-Ann D. Suleiman, Sanad Support Technologies, Rock ville, Md.
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