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Carregando... A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya (original: 1990; edição: 1990)de Linda Schele (Autor), David Freidel (Autor)
Informações da ObraA Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya de Linda Schele (Author) (1990)
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Registre-se no LibraryThing tpara descobrir se gostará deste livro. Ainda não há conversas na Discussão sobre este livro. I picked this up even though I learned from the index that Xunantunich, one of the only Mayan sites I've visited, was mentioned only once in a throwaway line. Of course, Mayan history is interesting enough to be read about by more than academics and tourists. 'A Forest of Kings' is a deceptively fat book, its last 150 pages are appendices and endnotes, and the main text is full of illustrations which makes it a much easier read than you might think. The authors are certainly academics, but they've made a really great effort to reduce technical details to a minimum and put the bulk of their evidence into the aforementioned appendices and footnotes. I think they did too good of a job there. Every chapter has at least one or two vignettes of hypothetical situations drawn from the archaeological and linguistic record which makes for interesting reading but they are the product of so much well-imagined guesswork that I can't suppress my skepticism even after I've flipped to the back to read the notes for that page. The book is out of date, with almost all of the chapters referencing ongoing excavations and translation of findings, but the picture they present seemed fair-minded and, prose embellishments aside, firmly based on the evidence available to them and many of the illustrations are side-by-side simple translations of Mayan writing into English. Reading this I understood why my professors had not assigned much reading on the history of the Maya, focusing on ecological impact instead, because there is, quite simply, a lot of one-sided historical data. With much of it, it is almost impossible to find a middle ground. There is this ~400 page treatment, and statements such as: "various small monarchic city-states exist in a state of near-constant warfare for 1000 years." A gross over-simplification, but if you want to get beyond that you're going to need to sit down and read 'A Forest of Kings', or a book of similar length. The purpose of this book, written by scholars on the subject, Linda Schele and David Freidl, appears to be twofold. Firstly, to reveal or rather decode the hieroglyphs, of what they believe, are the stories left behind by kings and nobles detailing their dynastic rule and conquests throughout Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Secondly, in using this information the author’s attempt to reconstruct/fictionalize scenarios of what may have taken place. Certainly, this imagery is helpful in attempting to understand the workings of the ancient Maya yet the skeptic in me wonders just how much of what the author’s envision is accurate. A Forest of Kings has left this reader swimming, with her head barely above water, in a cenote of dates, names, conquests, conjecture, assumptions and speculation , sometimes asking more questions than there are answers. There is a life preserver, however, If anything, this book has me wanting to read more, question more and try to understand more of these silent warriors. Would I recommend it…………….. Yes, but not to everyone. One really must have some knowledge and interest in the Mayan culture to get any enjoyment from this book. If you are a beginner in this area I would recommend Stephens and Catherwood’s Incidents of Travel in Yucatan for an interesting overview. sem resenhas | adicionar uma resenha
Referências a esta obra em recursos externos. Wikipédia em inglês (23)Using data from art and archaeology, this book provides the public with the first glimpse of the just-deciphered history of the Classic Maya. A retelling of the doings of kings and conquerors in Central America more than 1,000 years ago. Não foram encontradas descrições de bibliotecas. |
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Google Books — Carregando... GênerosClassificação decimal de Dewey (CDD)972.01History and Geography North America Mexico, Central America, West Indies, Bermuda Mexico, Central America, West Indies, Bermuda Ancient civilization (-1516)Classificação da Biblioteca do Congresso dos E.U.A. (LCC)AvaliaçãoMédia:
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Hailed as "a Rosetta Stone of Maya civilization", A Forest of Kings is "a must for interested readers", seys Evon Vogt, professor of anthropology at Harvard University.