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

Wright, Ronald

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802137288 ISBN 13: 9780802137289

Publisher: Grove Press, 2000

Synopsis

The Maya created one of the world's most brilliant civilizations, famous for its art, astronomy, and deep fascination with the mystery of time. Despite collapse in the ninth century, Spanish invasion in the sixteenth, and civil war in the twentieth, eight million people in Guatemala, Belize, and southern Mexico speak Mayan languages and maintain their resilient culture to this day. Traveling through Central America's jungles and mountains, Ronald Wright explores the ancient roots of the Maya, their recent troubles, and prospects for survival. Embracing history, anthropology, politics, and literature, Time Among the Maya is a riveting journey through past magnificence and the study of an enduring civilization with much to teach the present. "Wright's unpretentious narrative blends anthropology, archaeology, history, and politics with his own entertaining excursions and encounters." -- The New Yorker; "Time Among the Maya shows Wright to be far more than a mere storyteller or descriptive writer. He is an historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures." -- Jan Morris, The Independent (London).

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: Grove Press
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0802137288
• ISBN 13: 9780802137289
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 464