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摘要
摘要
New Yorker editor Peter Canby spent two years studying Mayan culture, both past and present, to provide this vivid portrait of these enigmatic people, their life style and beliefs. A fascinating glimpse into a world long forgotten by outsiders. 15 maps.
评论 (4)
出版社周刊评论
Part travelogue, part anthropological study and part cultural history, this book attempts to place the extant seven million Maya of Mexico and Central America--most live in Guatemala and Honduras--into a contemporary perspective. Canby finds that far from dying out, as is commonly supposed, the Maya have made accommodations to modern life, achieved a strange blend of their ancient religion with Catholicism and survived genocidal onslaughts by the Guatemalan military in the past decade. A New Yorker staff writer, he painstakingly details the history of the Mayan people, but in quoting scholars, archaeologists and the Maya themselves he writes in such polished blocks of prose as to be stylistically irritating. The book, nonetheless, is a clear-sighted and politically responsible piece of work. Canby, who is obviously courageous and adventurous, even foolhardy at times, managed to learn a great deal about this tenacious, much-abused people. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus评论
Sincere but somewhat self-oriented accumulation of facts and impressions gathered during three years of wanderings among the Maya of Mexico and Central America; by former New Yorker editor Canby. A stranger in a strange land, Canby says that the purpose of his travels--and they were daunting, considering the 30-odd languages in use and other difficulties of access--was to understand the overall situation of the modern Maya, descendants of a sophisticated Mesoamerican civilization still holding fast to tradition after centuries of Spanish and Latino (mixed-blood) oppression. Beginning in the relative tranquility of southern Mexico, Canby found a sense of Maya otherness quickly surfacing when a first solo trip to a native village resulted in missed connections, misunderstandings, and a long walk at dusk back to the starting point. Fortunately, subsequent efforts proved more successful, including a visit to guerrilla country along the river border between Mexico and Guatemala with a French ecologist working for the Guatemalan government; explorations with gringo experts of temples and cities built during the classic Maya period (7th-8th centuries A.D.); and a number of observations based on participation in native rituals and ceremonies, including the Holy Week appearance of the old-man underworld god, Maximón. Using scholarly texts for historical background and contemporary analysis, Canby evokes in colorful and sympathetic detail the remarkable story of a people's will to survive, but barriers between the Anglo and Maya worldviews remain largely intact, so the result of the author's trip is less a journey to the heart of the Maya than a mapping of its periphery. A patchwork of solid research and stirring images, but overly impressionistic and personal, and more frustrating than fulfilling. (Fifteen maps.)
《书目》(Booklist)书评
Canby, a versatile magazine writer and the New Yorker staff member, spent three years studying and traveling among the Maya in preparation for his first book. He brings a fluid knowledge of Mayan history and scholarship and an open mind about the lives of modern-day Maya to his arduous physical and intellectual journey. The Maya survived two apocalypses: the still mysterious collapse of their sophisticated urban centers in the 9th century and the invasion of the Spanish in the 16th. Descendants of the survivors live in the highlands of southern Mexico, the Yucatan, northern Guatemala, and Belize and are little-known. Canby gamely travels on his own and in the company of various experts, exploring villages and ruins in these remote regions, musing on our limited understanding of Mayan ideology and the Maya's impressive adaptability and resilience that have allowed them to retain their cultural identity in spite of centuries of violence and forced conversion to Catholicism. His descriptions of the wonders of the ancient cities of Palenque and Copan and the gigantic ritual caves in Belize are both thrilling and bone-chilling in their evocations of the creative and spiritual aspects of Mayan life during the "Classic" period (A.D. 200-800), while his discussions of the vicious treatment of the Maya by Central American governments and their armies are just plain depressing, however enlightening. ~--Donna Seaman
《图书馆杂志》(Library Journal )书评
During its golden age the Mayan civilization of Central America and Mexico produced incredible works of art, studied and used astronomy and mathematics (and invented the concept of zero), and developed accurate calendars. Most importantly, they were the first people of the Western hemisphere to develop an advanced form of writing. While their culture peaked at about 250 A.D., over seven million Maya currently live in parts of Mexico and Central America. Canby, a contributor to The New Yorker and Audubon , spent the last three years studying the Maya. Here, he tells mainly of his travels to small villages, devoting much of his text to the worship system, a unique mixture of Catholic and Maya beliefs and ceremonies. This is an accessible look at Mayan civilization, past and present, and is recommended for general collections.-- Lisa J. Cochenet, Rhinelander Dist. Lib . , Wis. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.