City of Sacrifice by David Carrasco
At an excavation of the Great Aztec Temple in Mexico City, amid carvings of skulls and a dismembered warrior goddess, David Carrasco stood before a container filled with the decorated bones of infants and children. It was the site of a massive human sacrifice, and for Carrasco the center of fiercely provocative questions: If ritual violence against humans was a profound necessity for the Aztecs in their capital city, is it central to the construction of social order and the authority of city states? Is civilization built on violence?In City of Sacrifice,Carrasco chronicles the fascinating story of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, investigating Aztec religious practices and demonstrating that religious violence was integral to urbanization; the city itself was a temple to the gods. That Mexico City, the largest city on earth, was built on the ruins of Tenochtitlan, is a point Carrasco poignantly considers in his comparison of urban life from antiquity to modernity.
Majestic in scope, City of Sacrifice illuminates not only the rich history of a major Meso american city but also the inseparability of two passionate human impulses: urbanization and religious engagement. It has much to tell us about many familiar events in our own time, from suicide bombings in Tel Aviv to rape and murder in the Balkans.
David Carrasco is director of the Moses Mesoamerican Archive, professor of history of religions at Harvard University, editor of UPC's Mesoamerican Worlds series and editor-in-chief of The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. His works include Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage, Moctezuma's Mexico, Waiting for the Dawn, Aztec Ceremonial Landscapes (University Press of Colorado), and City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization (Beacon).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780807046432 |
| ISBN 10 | 0807046434 |
| Title | City of Sacrifice |
| Author | David Carrasco |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Beacon Press |
| Year published | 2000-12-08 |
| Number of pages | 288 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |