The Maya

A Very Short Introduction

By: Matthew Restall, Amara Solari

Narrated by: Tim Campbell

Length: 3 hrs and 20 mins

Publisher's summary

The Maya forged one of the greatest societies in the history of the ancient Americas and in all of human history. Long before contact with Europeans, Maya communities built spectacular cities with large, well-fed large populations. They mastered the visual arts, and developed a sophisticated writing system that recorded extraordinary knowledge in calendrics, mathematics, and astronomy.

The Maya achieved all this without area-wide centralized control. There was never a single, unified Maya state or empire, but always numerous, evolving ethnic groups speaking dozens of distinct Mayan languages. The people we call "Maya" never thought of themselves as such; yet something definable, unique, and endlessly fascinating-what we call Maya culture-has clearly existed for millennia. So what was their self-identity and how did Maya civilization come to be "invented?"

With the Maya historically subdivided and misunderstood in so many ways, the pursuit of what made them "the Maya" is all the more important. In this Very Short Introduction, Restall and Solari explore the themes of Maya identity, city-state political culture, art and architecture, the Maya concept of the cosmos, and the Maya experience of contact with including invasion by outsiders.

©2020 Oxford University Press (P)2020 Tantor

Outstanding introduction

The authors do a superb job distilling an enormous and ever-growing mass of material into an enjoyable and useful guide to essentials. The references at the end including equally useful commentary on places to start doing further research, too. And the reading is equally excellent, getting the nuances of Mayan pronunciation right for Mayan names and words. Highly recommended.

Pretty great, but a bit superficial.

This is an excellent intro into a massive history. The authors seem to do a great job of submitting a complete overview of the historical information available today on a scholarly level. Yet some is glossed over, not just in the sense that it’s not an in-depth writing, but in the sense that the astronomy, architecture, spirituality, and wisdom of the Maya, are basically avoided. The Maya are presented as perhaps an impressive yet somewhat regular ancient society, no better or worse morally than any other, based on the evidence. Which is to be appreciated as a more reasonable view of the Maya to balance the everpresent extreme views from many ends. Yet, there is not much discussion of the actual ideology, knowledge or wisdom that existed with Maya, which I would hold to be the pinnacle of the topic itself. They rightfully blame european historians of old for not giving them credit for their architecture, while failing to give them full credit by way of analysis of that architecture and the lifestyle behind it. A bit more there would have been necessary and appreciated. Still its a great historical overview, that I enjoyed and recommend for sure. They present tons of relevant and important information on the historical timeline, and for that it is a wonderful writing. The reader has a great voice and pacing, and does a pretty good job of pronouncing Mayan words.