The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction

Citation

Carrasco, D. (2012). The Aztecs: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press. Very Short Introductions.

Chapter Summary

The book has eight chapters on 120 pages of text, followed by references, further reading and an index (xiv + 138 pages in all, with illustrations). The publisher describes it as drawing on history, religious studies and anthropology, and as looking beyond the Spanish accounts that have shaped most Western narratives in order to let Aztec voices speak about their origin stories, their capital, child rearing and the work of women. The order is not strictly chronological: it starts with the capital at its height, goes back to origins, and ends with the empire's fall and its afterlife.

Chapter 1: The City of Tenochtitlan: Center of the Aztec World

The book opens with the capital (pp. 1–15). The publisher singles out the cosmic significance the Aztecs gave their capital city, so the chapter introduces Aztec religion through urban space before any narrative history begins.

Chapter 2: Aztec Foundations: Aztlan, Cities, Peoples

The second chapter (pp. 16–37) turns to origins. According to the publisher, Carrasco contrasts Aztec mythical traditions about where their city came from, beginning with the homeland of Aztlan, with what is known of actual urban life in Mesoamerica.

Chapter 3: Aztec Expansion through Conquest and Trade

One of the longest chapters (pp. 38–60) outlines the rise of the Aztec empire, as the title says, through both war and commerce.

Chapter 4: Cosmovision and Human Sacrifice

Pages 61–77 deal with Aztec religion. The publisher describes a people committed to cosmic regeneration through the ceremonial knife and warfare, and a religion that offered both justifications for, and alternatives to, warfare, sacrifice and imperial expansion.

Chapter 5: Women and Children: Weavers of Life and Precious Necklaces

Pages 78–91 cover the methods of child rearing and the contributions women made to daily life and to the empire, two of the topics on which the publisher says the book lets Aztec voices speak.

Chapter 6: Wordplay, Philosophy, Sculpture

A short chapter (pp. 92–101) on Aztec poetry, philosophy and painting, with particular attention, in the publisher's words, to monumental sculpture and architecture.

Chapter 7: The Fall of the Aztec Empire

Pages 102–111 treat the arrival of the Spaniards and the end of the empire. The Spanish conquest thus comes late in the book and takes up only about ten pages.

Chapter 8: The Return of the Aztecs

The final chapter (pp. 112–120) follows how the Aztecs have been portrayed in Western thought, art, film and literature, and in Latino culture and arts.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: City, origins and empire

• Tenochtitlan: the Aztec capital, treated as a city with cosmic meaning as well as a political centre.
• Aztlan: the homeland of the Aztecs' origin traditions, set against the archaeological record of Mesoamerican cities.
• Conquest and trade: the two means of Aztec expansion named in the title of Chapter 3.

Chapters 4–6: Religion, society and thought

• Cosmovision: the Aztec understanding of the cosmos, which the book links to human sacrifice.
• Cosmic regeneration: the purpose the publisher's description attaches to sacrifice and warfare.
• Women and children: the roles of women and the raising of children, given their own chapter.

Chapters 7–8: Fall and afterlife

• Fall of the Aztec empire: the Spanish arrival and conquest, treated in Chapter 7.
• Return of the Aztecs: the later reinvention of Aztec images in Western and Latino culture.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Aztec perspectives first. The publisher emphasises that the book looks beyond the Spanish accounts that dominate the Western narrative, and the structure follows that aim: the city, origins, religion, family life and art take six of the eight chapters before the conquest appears.
• A religious-studies perspective. Carrasco is the Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America at Harvard and was awarded the Mexican Order of the Aztec Eagle for his work on Mesoamerican religions and Mexican American culture. The book's treatment of cosmovision and sacrifice draws on that specialism and places sacrifice within a religious system rather than presenting it in isolation.
• Social and cultural range. Separate chapters on women and children and on poetry, philosophy and sculpture give attention to topics that short political histories often leave out.
• Afterlives included. The final chapter on representations in Western and Latino culture connects the subject to the present, which suits courses interested in memory and global history.

Limitations

• Very short treatment of the conquest. Chapter 7 has about ten pages; readers studying the conquest of Mexico will need a fuller account.
• Thematic rather than narrative. Because the book begins with the city at its height and then goes back to origins, readers who want a straightforward chronology of Aztec rulers and campaigns will need to build one themselves.
• Aztecs only. Every chapter title concerns the Aztec world, so the book is not a general introduction to Mesoamerica or to pre-Columbian America.

Where It Fits in the Course

In a course built around large world-history surveys such as Ways of the World, Traditions & Encounters, The Earth and Its Peoples and Worlds Together, Worlds Apart, this book is a short case study of a single society. It gives far more detail on Mesoamerica than those surveys can and shows how sources and religious ideas are used to reconstruct an Indigenous world. Read it alongside the survey chapters on the Americas before 1500 and on the Atlantic encounter.

Benjamin Keen and Keith Haynes's A History of Latin America is the regional survey that continues the story: its opening chapters on pre-Columbian societies overlap with Carrasco, and its later chapters cover the colonial and modern periods that Carrasco's final chapter only glances at. Sebastian Conrad's What Is Global History? offers a contrasting kind of reading, about method rather than a single society; Carrasco's book is a useful test case for its questions about how to write the history of a non-European society on its own terms.

How to Use This Book

The book is written for general readers and students with no background in Mesoamerican history, and its 120 pages of text can be read in two or three sittings.

• Core reading: Chapters 1–4 (pp. 1–77) carry the main argument about the city, origins, empire and religion. Read them in order, so that the discussion of sacrifice comes after the city and the empire it served.
• Social and cultural history: Chapters 5 and 6 can be assigned for seminars on gender, family or art.
• Conquest and memory: Chapters 7 and 8 pair well with readings on the Spanish conquest and on modern Mexican and Latino identity.
• Alongside it: follow up with the further-reading list, and while reading Chapter 4 keep the publisher's framing in mind: the book presents religion as offering both justifications for and alternatives to war and sacrifice, a useful prompt for discussion.