Carrasco Davíd, Sessions Scott. Daily Life of the Aztecs

2nd Edition — Greenwood, 2011. — 288 p.Utilizing insights from the discipline known as the history of religions, as well as new discoveries in archaeology, pictorial manuscripts, and ritual practices, Daily Life of the Aztecs, Second Edition weaves together a narrative describing life from the bottom of the Aztec social pyramid to its top. This new and surprising interpretation of the Aztecs puts a human face on an ancient people who created beautiful art and architecture, wrote beautiful poetry, and loved their children profoundly, while also making war and human sacrifice fundamental parts of their world.The book describes the interaction between the material and the imaginative worlds of the Aztecs, offering insights into their communities, games, education, foodways, and arts, as well as the sacrificial rituals they performed. The authors also detail the evolution of the Aztec state and explores the continuity and changes in Aztec symbols, myths, and ritual practices into the present day.This revised edition extends the new interpretive developments of the earlier version with the most recent archaeological discoveries in and around the Basin of Mexico, including ongoing excavations of the Great Aztec Temple in downtown Mexico City and at the site of Teotihuacan, the City of the Gods, where startling new finds at the Pyramid of the Moon have been taking place.- Offers the clearest and most insightful description available of daily life in the most powerful pre-Hispanic, Native American empire
- Contains new information about the indigenous backgrounds of all the Americas, but especially Mexican and other Latino immigrants who are remaking the United States
- Addresses the profound puzzle of humans simultaneously acting in both tender and violent ways towards each otherDavíd Carrasco is a Mexican-American historian of religions whose work on Aztec cosmology, cities, and ritual has forged new directions in the study of Mesoamerican cultures. He is the editor-in-chief of the award-winning Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America and the recipient of the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle (the highest recognition Mexico gives to a foreign national) for his contributions to new knowledge about Mexican culture.
Scott Sessions is managing editor of the African-American Religion Documentary History Project and visiting lecturer in the religion department at Amherst College, Amherst, MA. He was development editor for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: The Civilizations of Mexico and Central America and is coeditor of Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage: From Teotihuacan to the Aztecs and Cave, City, and Eagle's Nest: An Interpretive Journey through the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2.