A descendant of both Spanish settlers and Nahua (Aztec) rulers, Don
Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl (ca. 1578-1650) was an avid
collector of indigenous pictorial and alphabetic texts and a
prodigious chronicler of the history of pre-conquest and
conquest-era Mexico. His magnum opus, here for the first time in
English translation, is one of the liveliest, most accessible, and
most influential accounts of the rise and fall of Aztec Mexico
derived from indigenous sources and memories and written from a
native perspective. Composed in the first half of the seventeenth
century, a hundred years after the arrival of the Spanish
conquerors in Mexico, the History of the Chichimeca Nation is based
on native accounts but written in the medieval chronicle style. It
is a gripping tale of adventure, romance, seduction, betrayal, war,
heroism, misfortune, and tragedy. Written at a time when
colonization and depopulation were devastating indigenous
communities, its vivid descriptions of the cultural sophistication,
courtly politics, and imperial grandeur of the Nahua world
explicitly challenged European portrayals of native Mexico as a
place of savagery and ignorance. Unpublished for centuries, it
nonetheless became an important source for many of our most beloved
and iconic memories of the Nahuas, widely consulted by scholars of
Spanish American history, politics, literature, anthropology, and
art. The manuscript of the History, lost in the 1820s, was only
rediscovered in the 1980s. This volume is not only the first-ever
English translation, but also the first edition in any language
derived entirely from the original manuscript. Expertly rendered,
with introduction and notes outlining the author's
historiographical legacy, this translation at long last affords
readers the opportunity to absorb the history of one of the
Americas' greatest indigenous civilizations as told by one of its
descendants.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
