I haven't read Reading the Maya Glyphs but it's well thought of, iirc. You might also look at Forest of Kings, Friedel & Schele (now probably quite out of date, but I remember loving it ten years ago). And I see that Linda Schele has a newer book, Code of Kings, on more or less the same topic.
On some related problems of translation (but not decipherment) I love Dennis Tedlock's long introduction to his translation -- which I can vouch for as beautiful; can't make claims about its accuracy, either way -- of the Popul Vuh.
Nancy Farriss, Maya Society Under Colonial Rule is about the interactions between Spanish colonialists and Mayans in the Yucatan, on the theme of mutual cultural influence and cultural continuity. Brilliant and readable, though again probably somewhat out of date. Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests looks only at the earliest period of Spanish/Mayan interaction in the same place. I liked the first edition very much, and there's a new edition out now that must incorporate some of this new documentary evidence from the decipherments.
On Mayan history more recently, including a nice deconstruction of the term "Maya," Greg Grandin's Blood of Guatemala is a readable and fascinating history of people in and around the city of Quetzeltenango. The best historians (in English) of the 20th c. Yucatan are Ben Fallaw and Gilbert Joseph. For Chiapas, the best available English-language history is by Thomas Benjamin, but it isn't all that good. For Guatemala beyond Quetzeltenango and after 1954, read David McCreery.
Far less readable than any other book on this list, but kind of hilarious (and with some cool passages about the difficulties of learning to speak Maya), an account of present-day Yucatecan Maya life: Quetzil Castaneda (should be a tilda over the n there), In the Museum of Mayan Culture, which is an ethnography of the Mayan artisans who sell trinkets to tourists at Chichen Itza. This also gives the short version of the history of archeology and anthropology in the Yucatan, which is pretty ugly.
One more: Sophie Coe (late wife of Michael) wrote a great book about indigenous foods of the Americas.
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Date: 2004-11-22 03:41 pm (UTC)On some related problems of translation (but not decipherment) I love Dennis Tedlock's long introduction to his translation -- which I can vouch for as beautiful; can't make claims about its accuracy, either way -- of the Popul Vuh.
Nancy Farriss, Maya Society Under Colonial Rule is about the interactions between Spanish colonialists and Mayans in the Yucatan, on the theme of mutual cultural influence and cultural continuity. Brilliant and readable, though again probably somewhat out of date. Inga Clendinnen, Ambivalent Conquests looks only at the earliest period of Spanish/Mayan interaction in the same place. I liked the first edition very much, and there's a new edition out now that must incorporate some of this new documentary evidence from the decipherments.
On Mayan history more recently, including a nice deconstruction of the term "Maya," Greg Grandin's Blood of Guatemala is a readable and fascinating history of people in and around the city of Quetzeltenango. The best historians (in English) of the 20th c. Yucatan are Ben Fallaw and Gilbert Joseph. For Chiapas, the best available English-language history is by Thomas Benjamin, but it isn't all that good. For Guatemala beyond Quetzeltenango and after 1954, read David McCreery.
Far less readable than any other book on this list, but kind of hilarious (and with some cool passages about the difficulties of learning to speak Maya), an account of present-day Yucatecan Maya life: Quetzil Castaneda (should be a tilda over the n there), In the Museum of Mayan Culture, which is an ethnography of the Mayan artisans who sell trinkets to tourists at Chichen Itza. This also gives the short version of the history of archeology and anthropology in the Yucatan, which is pretty ugly.
One more: Sophie Coe (late wife of Michael) wrote a great book about indigenous foods of the Americas.
Um ... that's probably enough for a while!