Time among the Maya : Travels in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico - Softcover

Ronald Wright

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349108927 ISBN 13: 9780349108926

Publisher: Abacus, 1997

Synopsis

The Maya of Central America have been called the Greeks of the New World. In the first millennium AD, they created the most intellectually and artistically advanced civilization of the Americas. Throughout the ensuing centuries, as neighbouring empires fell in warfare and to the Spanish invasion, the Maya endured, shaken but never destroyed.

In Time Among the Maya, Ronald Wright’s journey takes him not only to the lands of the ancient Maya, but also among the five million people who speak Mayan languages and preserve a Mayan identity today. His travels begin in tiny Belize, exploring the jungles and mountains of Guatemala, bloodstained by civil war, and end in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. Embracing history, politics, anthropology, and literature, this book is both a fascinating travel memoir and the study of a civilization.

About this title

About the Author:

Ronald Wright is the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of several non-fiction books, including A Short History of Progress, Stolen Continents (which won the Gordon Montador Award), and Cut Stones and Crossroads. He is also the author of the novels Henderson's Spear and A Scientific Romance, the latter of which won Britain's David Higham Prize for Fiction. He was born in England, educated at Cambridge, and now lives in British Columbia.

Review:

“One of Wright’s many achievements is to arouse in his readers a sense of political rage without inducing cynicism and despair. He manages this delicate feat by juxtaposing recent events with stories from Mexican and Guatemalan history, and from the pre-Conquest period of Mayan life—as well as by means of some wry, deprecating anecdotes about his own travels. To read this book is to swim through several different times.” - The Gazette (Montreal)

“Outstanding.... Wright draws on his experience to make the old Maya as real as the new Guatemalans and it is all delivered with great style.” - The Sunday Times (London)

"Mr. Wright’s narrative blends anthropology, archaeology, history, and politics with his own entertaining excursions and encounters, and, without any visible didactic effort, he teaches us a lot about the ways that culture endures.” - The New Yorker

“Ronald Wright is a superb travel writer, erudite, humorous, without bias, equipped with a true historian’s nose.” - The Observer (London)

“Any account of the modern-day Maya must be a tapestry, weaving together past glories and present destitution. Ronald Wright has managed admirably ... a skilful marriage of history, archaeology and reportage.” - The Baltimore Sun

“Mr. Wright offers a rich, almost Keatsian prose that often makes picture books seem rigid snatches at reality.... Whether he leads us into Guatemala City or a tiny village or a restaurant, we can count on everything being exactly the way he describes it and much better than we could have described it ourselves.” - The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

“Excellent.... Wright combines super research on the Mayan past with a passionate concern for Central America’s present, in a book that is informative on every page.... An important account.” - The Kansas City Star

"Time Among the Maya will firmly establish Wright as one of the most thoughtful and informative writers in the genre.” - Quill & Quire

“Time Among the Maya is an intelligent, balanced, warm, and often wise book. Ronald Wright has the ability to see, feel, and simultaneously begin to understand a time and place far different from our own. And he has the talent to describe for others the world he has found.” - The Globe and Mail

“A brilliant, highly engaging travelogue, sparkling with wit, incisive observation, and sheer good writing.... Wright is the ideal traveling companion.” - Toronto Star

“Fine research and descriptive powers.” - The New York Times Book Review

“In his lively account ... Wright deftly weaves the past into the present in a fascinating tale of Mayan endurance in the face of Spanish conquistadores and modern death squads.” - Maclean’s

About this edition

• Publisher: Abacus
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0349108927
• ISBN 13: 9780349108926
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464