Author: Frances F. BerdanPublisher: Dumbarton Oaks
ISBN: 9780884022114
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
Papers from the 1986 Summer Seminar, "Empire, Province, and Village in Aztec History."
Aztec Imperial Strategies
Author: Frances F. BerdanPublisher: Dumbarton Oaks
ISBN: 9780884022114
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408
Book Description
Papers from the 1986 Summer Seminar, "Empire, Province, and Village in Aztec History."
Aztec Imperial Strategies
Author: Universal Empire
Author: Peter Fibiger BangPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107022673
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 399
Book Description
This book explores the aspiration to universal, imperial rule across Eurasian history from antiquity to the eighteenth century.
Tlacaelel Remembered
Author: Susan SchroederPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806157666
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
The enigmatic and powerful Tlacaelel (1398–1487), wrote annalist Chimalpahin, was “the beginning and origin” of the Mexica monarchy in fifteenth-century Mesoamerica. Brother of the first Moteuczoma, Tlacaelel would become “the most powerful, feared, and esteemed man of all that the world had seen up to that time.” But this outsize figure of Aztec history has also long been shrouded in mystery. In Tlacaelel Remembered, the first biography of the Mexica nobleman, Susan Schroeder searches out the truth about his life and legacy. A century after Tlacaelel’s death, in the wake of the conquistadors, Spaniards and natives recorded the customs, histories, and language of the Nahua, or Aztec, people. Three of these chroniclers—fray Diego Durán, don Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, and especially don Domingo de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin—wrote of Tlacaelel. But the inaccessibility of Chimalpahin’s annals has meant that for centuries of Aztec history, Tlacaelel has appeared, if at all, as a myth. Working from Chimalpahin’s newly available writings and exploring connections and variances in other source materials, Schroeder draws the clearest possible portrait of Tlacaelel, revealing him as the architect of the Aztec empire’s political power and its military might—a politician on par with Machiavelli. As the advisor to five Mexica rulers, Tlacaelel shaped the organization of the Mexica state and broadened the reach of its empire—feats typically accomplished with the spread of warfare, human sacrifice, and cannibalism. In the annals, he is considered the “second king” to the rulers who built the empire, and is given the title “Cihuacoatl,” used for the office of president and judge. As Schroeder traces Tlacaelel through the annals, she also examines how his story was transmitted and transformed in later histories. The resulting work is the most complete and comprehensive account ever given of this significant figure in Mesoamerican history.
Aztec Warfare
Author: Ross HassigPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 9780806127736
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428
Book Description
In exploring the pattern and methods of Aztec expansion, Ross Hassig focuses on political and economic factors. Because they lacked numerical superiority, faced logistical problems presented by the terrain, and competed with agriculture for manpower, the Aztecs relied as much on threats and the image of power as on military might to subdue enemies and hold them in their orbit. Hassig describes the role of war in the everyday life of the capital, Tenochtitlan: the place of the military in Aztec society; the education and training of young warriors; the organization of the army; the use of weapons and armor; and the nature of combat.
The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs
Author: Deborah L. NicholsPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199341966
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 785
Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of the Aztecs, the first of its kind, provides a current overview of recent research on the Aztec empire, the best documented prehispanic society in the Americas. Chapters span from the establishment of Aztec city-states to the encounter with the Spanish empire and the Colonial period that shaped the modern world. Articles in the Handbook take up new research trends and methodologies and current debates. The Handbook articles are divided into seven parts. Part I, Archaeology of the Aztecs, introduces the Aztecs, as well as Aztec studies today, including the recent practice of archaeology, ethnohistory, museum studies, and conservation. The articles in Part II, Historical Change, provide a long-term view of the Aztecs starting with important predecessors, the development of Aztec city-states and imperialism, and ending with a discussion of the encounter of the Aztec and Spanish empires. Articles also discuss Aztec notions of history, writing, and time. Part III, Landscapes and Places, describes the Aztec world in terms of its geography, ecology, and demography at varying scales from households to cities. Part IV, Economic and Social Relations in the Aztec Empire, discusses the ethnic complexity of the Aztec world and social and economic relations that have been a major focus of archaeology. Articles in Part V, Aztec Provinces, Friends, and Foes, focuses on the Aztec's dynamic relations with distant provinces, and empires and groups that resisted conquest, and even allied with the Spanish to overthrow the Aztec king. This is followed by Part VI, Ritual, Belief, and Religion, which examines the different beliefs and rituals that formed Aztec religion and their worldview, as well as the material culture of religious practice. The final section of the volume, Aztecs after the Conquest, carries the Aztecs through the post-conquest period, an increasingly important area of archaeological work, and considers the place of the Aztecs in the modern world.
Mexico and the Spanish Conquest
Author: Ross HassigPublisher: University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN: 0806182083
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281
Book Description
What role did indigenous peoples play in the Spanish conquest of Mexico? Ross Hassig explores this question in Mexico and the Spanish Conquest by incorporating primary accounts from the Indians of Mexico and revisiting the events of the conquest against the backdrop of the Aztec empire, the culture and politics of Mesoamerica, and the military dynamics of both sides. He analyzes the weapons, tactics, and strategies employed by both the Indians and the Spaniards, and concludes that the conquest was less a Spanish victory than it was a victory of Indians over other Indians, which the Spaniards were able to exploit to their own advantage. In this second edition of his classic work, Hassig incorporates new research in the same concise manner that made the original edition so popular and provides further explanations of the actions and motivations of Cortés, Moteuczoma, and other key figures. He also explores their impact on larger events and examines in greater detail Spanish military tactics and strategies.
Everyday Life in the Aztec World
Author: Frances F. BerdanPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108894410
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 291
Book Description
In Everyday Life in the Aztec World, Frances Berdan and Michael E. Smith offer a view into the lives of real people, doing very human things, in the unique cultural world of Aztec central Mexico. The first section focuses on people from an array of social classes - the emperor, a priest, a feather worker, a merchant, a farmer, and a slave - who interacted in the economic, social and religious realms of the Aztec world. In the second section, the authors examine four important life events where the lives of these and others intersected: the birth and naming of a child, market day, a day at court, and a battle. Through the microscopic views of individual types of lives, and interweaving of those lives into the broader Aztec world, Berdan and Smith recreate everyday life in the final years of the Aztec Empire.
The Aztec Economy
Author: Frances F. BerdanPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009368087
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 178
Book Description
The Aztec Economy provides a synthesis and updated examination of the Aztec economy (1325–1521 AD). It is organized around seven components that recur with other Elements in this series: historic and geographic background, domestic economy, institutional economy, specialization, forms of distribution and commercialization, economic development, and future directions. The Aztec world was complex, hierarchical, and multifaceted, and was in a constant state of demographic growth, recoveries from natural disasters, political alignments and realignments, and aggressive military engagements. The economy was likewise complex and dynamic, and characterized by intensive agriculture, exploitation of non-agricultural resources, utilitarian and luxury manufacturing, wide-scale specialization, merchants, markets, commodity monies, and tribute systems.
Empires
Author: Susan E. AlcockPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521770200
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 554
Book Description
Empires, the largest political systems of the ancient and early modern world, powerfully transformed the lives of people within and even beyond their frontiers in ways quite different from other, non-imperial societies. Appearing in all parts of the globe, and in many different epochs, empires invite comparative analysis - yet few attempts have been made to place imperial systems within such a framework. This book brings together studies by distinguished scholars from diverse academic traditions, including anthropology, archaeology, history and classics. The empires discussed include case studies from Central and South America, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Near East, South East Asia and China, and range in time from the first millennium BC to the early modern era. The book organises these detailed studies into five thematic sections: sources, approaches and definitions; empires in a wider world; imperial integration and imperial subjects; imperial ideologies; and the afterlife of empires.