Time, History, and Belief in Aztec and Colonial Mexico - 9780292731400

Time, History, and Belief in Aztec and Colonial MexicoAuthor(s): Ross Hassig\nFormat: Paperback\nPublisher: University of Texas Press, United States\nImprint: University of Texas Press\nISBN-13: 9780292731400, 978-0292731400\nSynopsis\nBased on their enormously complex calendars that recorded cycles of many kinds, the Aztecs and other ancient Mesoamerican civilizations are generally believed to have had a cyclical, rather than linear, conception of time and history. This boldly revisionist book challenges that understanding. Ross Hassig offers convincing evidence that for the Aztecs time was predominantly linear, that it was manipulated by the state as a means of controlling a dispersed tribute empire, and that the Conquest cut off state control and severed the unity of the calendar, leaving only the lesser cycles. From these, he asserts, we have inadequately reconstructed the pre-Columbian calendar and so misunderstood the Aztec conception of time and history. \n\n Hassig first pres.