City of Sacrifice

The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization

David Carrasco

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English

Beacon Press
01 September 2018

History of the Americas; Early history: c 500 to c 1450&1500; Alternative belief systems; Social & cultural anthropology

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.

By: David Carrasco
Imprint: Beacon Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 203mm, Width: 135mm, Spine: 16mm
Weight: 318g
ISBN: 9780807046432
ISBN 10: 0807046434
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 01 September 2018
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

David L. Carrasco is professor of history of religions at Princeton University. Author and editor of many books, he is editor in chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures. He lives in Princeton, New Jersey.

Reviews for City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization

"""We know that power, whatever its origin-sacred, natural, ethnic, contractual, or democratic - is an expression of violence. David Carrasco now demonstrates a shattering, unsentimental truth: civilizations themselves are born and maintained by violence. A brilliant, provocative, timely and eternal book."" - Carlos Fuentes, author of A New Time for Mexico and The Years with Laura Diaz"""