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Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs
by
In November 1519, Hernando Cortés walked along a causeway leading to the capital of the Aztec kingdom and came face to face with Moctezuma. That story—and the story of what happened afterwards—has been told many times, but always following the narrative offered by the Spaniards. After all, we have been taught, it was the Europeans who held the pens. But the Native American
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Hardcover, 320 pages
Published
November 1st 2019
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published October 4th 2019)
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Start your review of Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs

Well I've only just started reading this, but this page 2 quote:
"Libraries are generally thought to be very quiet places, whether they shelter stacks of rare, leather-bound books or rows of computers. Another way to think of a library, however, is as a world of frozen voices, captured and rendered accessible forever by one of the most powerful human developments of all time--the act of writing. From that perspective, a library suddenly becomes a very noisy place. In theory, it contains fragments ...more
"Libraries are generally thought to be very quiet places, whether they shelter stacks of rare, leather-bound books or rows of computers. Another way to think of a library, however, is as a world of frozen voices, captured and rendered accessible forever by one of the most powerful human developments of all time--the act of writing. From that perspective, a library suddenly becomes a very noisy place. In theory, it contains fragments ...more

Dec 07, 2020
nastyako
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Recommended to nastyako by:
anne applebaum on twitter
Shelves:
nonfiction
This is my first encounter with "Aztec" - they never called themselves Aztecs - culture and history, not counting Apocalypto. This book uses new sources by indigenous peoples and tells a lot of memorable stories and recently won Cundill History Prize.
If you were disappointed by Black sun like I was, I highly recommend this non-fiction book! ...more
If you were disappointed by Black sun like I was, I highly recommend this non-fiction book! ...more

The book claims to be a revisionist history of Aztecs, to revolutionize almost everything we thought we knew about the civilization. In some sense these big claims are justified, because the author takes her information not just from the traditional Spanish side, but also from many "local" transcripts written in Nahuatl. The author should also get her credit for trying to introduce more personal voices into the history.
However, for my personal taste I feel she overdoes it. There are just too man ...more
However, for my personal taste I feel she overdoes it. There are just too man ...more

Forget everything you thought you knew about the Aztecs. Or the Mexica, as they were more commonly known amongst themselves. A fresh and insightful, sometimes familiar, history splashes across these pages which will open your eyes, ears, and heart to Nahua culture pre-and-post colonization. It resounds in a way that makes you realize how - for far too long - we’ve been missing more than half of the story, and it’s one we all need to hear. To learn. To know.
Townsend winds a vibrantly complex and ...more
Townsend winds a vibrantly complex and ...more

A good book if you want to know a little bit more about the Aztecs. The language is a little complex and it does take some previous knowledge to fully enjoy the premise of this book but with some effort, I was able to enjoy it. It is mostly a book that talked about the structure of the Aztec empire and how it started and how it developed to be what it was at the beginning of the Spanish conquest. The book does detail how what made the empire strong also made it weak and vulnerable to their enemi
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This book covers a lot of ground, a heck of a lot, as would be expected of a historical survey. But readers having a least some familiarity going in can help cope with voluminous information — names, groupings, places, etc. I’d benefit from that in many historical topics, but not here. My prior knowledge of the Aztecs was limited so more than usual was new to me, meaning it was a challenge to keep all the new information straight. I’ll probably need to come back and re-read this.
At least I do ha ...more
At least I do ha ...more

There is so much information in this book. It tickles me how the author uses themselves as a source. There is no pretending to have an understanding of a people who were so complex. Individuals who made history are given a voice like I have yet to read in other textbooks. I look forward to a reread.

My rating is on the low side because I really trudged through this book. As a few readers mentioned, having some familiarity with the history of the region the Aztecs inhabited helps a lot. I had virtually none. I appreciate that there is a lineage chart at the beginning of the book, but there were so many characters and so many interrelated families that I could not keep them sorted out.
Townsend states that she was trying to balance a scholarly perspective with the needs of non-scholarly reader ...more
Townsend states that she was trying to balance a scholarly perspective with the needs of non-scholarly reader ...more

Most histories of the Aztecs have been based on European sources because historians were too lazy to learn Nahuatl. This one is based on Nahuatl histories written by indigenous historians. I cannot recommend it highly enough. So many misconceptions, so many self serving narratives from colonizers, so many falsehoods are rectified. It was the first history of the Aztecs that made me think brightly of my ancestral connections to them and made me understand the continuing power of the Aztec imagery
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MANY DETAILS HAVE BEEN SOFTENED
The Aztecs are a mystery in Mesoamerica, in fact in Mexico. Their own name is the Mexica and they are only one people in Mexico which was occupied before the Spaniards arrived sometime after Christopher Columbus by a mosaic of various Indian ethnic groups that are specified as for their ethnic names but that are not specified as for their origins and languages. They are just there, then, coming from no one really knows where without a real specified past. The only ...more
The Aztecs are a mystery in Mesoamerica, in fact in Mexico. Their own name is the Mexica and they are only one people in Mexico which was occupied before the Spaniards arrived sometime after Christopher Columbus by a mosaic of various Indian ethnic groups that are specified as for their ethnic names but that are not specified as for their origins and languages. They are just there, then, coming from no one really knows where without a real specified past. The only ...more

This was a fascinating look at indigeneous culture and society in Central Mexico, and its remarkable relative resilience in the face of Spanish conquest.
The people we know as Aztecs -- who called themselves the Mexica -- had arrived relatively recently in Central Mexico themselves, perhaps from Utah. They effectively played regional politics, which Townsend describes as being cemented by polygamous marital alliances among the nobility of the various city-states. (The commoners practiced monogamy ...more
The people we know as Aztecs -- who called themselves the Mexica -- had arrived relatively recently in Central Mexico themselves, perhaps from Utah. They effectively played regional politics, which Townsend describes as being cemented by polygamous marital alliances among the nobility of the various city-states. (The commoners practiced monogamy ...more

Jan 05, 2021
Abby
added it
Another one of those books that I intended to read little bits of and ended up inhaling the whole thing. And now have a long list of other titles, should I ever want to go down the Aztec rabbit hole.
Of course, there were no Aztecs. That is the first thing I learned, and smacked my forehead because I should have known--the ethnic group that rose to power in the Valley of Mexico called themselves the Mexica. People of the wider region who shared a language, Nahuatl, called themselves Nahuas. Peopl ...more
Of course, there were no Aztecs. That is the first thing I learned, and smacked my forehead because I should have known--the ethnic group that rose to power in the Valley of Mexico called themselves the Mexica. People of the wider region who shared a language, Nahuatl, called themselves Nahuas. Peopl ...more

An illuminating reexamination
I don’t do star ratings on Goodreads, and if I finish a book I give it five stars on Amazon.
A very enjoyable new (old) piece of history, and a powerful addition to the project of re-centering indigenous people in their own past and future. The Mexica and their neighbors and the complex dynamics among them really don’t fit into enlightenment conceptions of power, and so much of their shade and color and meaning has been left unexplored by Western historians. This bo ...more
I don’t do star ratings on Goodreads, and if I finish a book I give it five stars on Amazon.
A very enjoyable new (old) piece of history, and a powerful addition to the project of re-centering indigenous people in their own past and future. The Mexica and their neighbors and the complex dynamics among them really don’t fit into enlightenment conceptions of power, and so much of their shade and color and meaning has been left unexplored by Western historians. This bo ...more

Really love how they went back to sources written by the Mexica and used that as the basis of history. As all nations, the Aztecs was a complex culture that was not monolith. Loved the part where the Europeans interacted with the Aztec empire and how accidental their victory seemed (other than smallpox)

From page 2 of the introduction:
"Libraries are generally thought to be very quiet places, whether they shelter stacks of rare, leather-bound books or rows of computers. Another way to think of a library, however, is as a world of frozen voices, captured and rendered accessible forever by one of the most powerful human developments of all time-the act of writing. From that perspective, a library suddenly becomes a very noisy place."
By the end of this page I had come to believe Townsend would be ...more
"Libraries are generally thought to be very quiet places, whether they shelter stacks of rare, leather-bound books or rows of computers. Another way to think of a library, however, is as a world of frozen voices, captured and rendered accessible forever by one of the most powerful human developments of all time-the act of writing. From that perspective, a library suddenly becomes a very noisy place."
By the end of this page I had come to believe Townsend would be ...more

it's interesting (and good) to hear a people's story from their words and not those of conquerors. I particularly liked the format, which was to make each chapter a story of one person, from ancient history (legend/tale of Shield Flower) to after the conquest. In the audio book, the narrator would spell each name after it was first introduced, which was a nice acknowledgement that most readers would have no idea how to go from written to spoken and vice versa. I'm glad I listened to this book so
...more

This book succeeds in conveying a sense of the complex politics, deep tradition, and sophisticated society of pre-conquest Mexico, and in underlining that these were not simply erased with the arrival of the Spaniards. Indigenous accounts are brought to the fore, and the experiences of women are also given special attention.
The author is also at pains to get across that at the end of the day the Aztecs were people, rather than the exotic aliens of our imagination. She does this by visiting the ...more
The author is also at pains to get across that at the end of the day the Aztecs were people, rather than the exotic aliens of our imagination. She does this by visiting the ...more

Fifth Sun tells the history of the Aztecs from their point of view, not from the point of view of the Spanish who conquered them. Pre-contact, the Aztecs had a system of recording the years, with glyphs that would act as mnemonic devices for the storytellers. When the Spanish came priests took some promising, young Aztecs and taught them Spanish, and to write. Many of these young Mexicas--on the side--wrote histories of their people in their native language Nahuatl with Spanish characters, recor
...more

A well-written, accessible, and engaging history of the people we know as the Aztecs. Rather than using the conquest of 1519 as a narrative beginning or endpoint, Townsend frames it as a pivot in the Aztecs' history, showing what came before and after, and the many ways the Aztecs handled the upheaval. In this, Townsend gives careful attention to various individuals in each chapter, such as Malintzin (Malinche), reconstructing their experiences from the extant sources. This effort to imagine wha
...more

Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. Camilla Townsend.
Before the Spaniards came to present-day Mexico in the 1500’s before the slaughter of the indigenous, and the subjugation of those who remained, there was a grand world-class city created by a group of migrants from the north called the Mexica. In a central lake surrounded by swampy land they built Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City. They inter-married with the faring people in the area and created a culture that today we refer to as ...more
Before the Spaniards came to present-day Mexico in the 1500’s before the slaughter of the indigenous, and the subjugation of those who remained, there was a grand world-class city created by a group of migrants from the north called the Mexica. In a central lake surrounded by swampy land they built Tenochtitlan, known today as Mexico City. They inter-married with the faring people in the area and created a culture that today we refer to as ...more

This is a fantastic and lucid telling of the political complexities and diplomatic relationships and practices of the greater México city basin from 100 years before the conquest through several generations after. She consults actual sources of the native peoples which have been ignored, belittled, or overlooked by scholars for hundreds of years, and she weaves a tale that reads like fiction.
The only reason I give it 4 stars is because I feel that in times of historical murkiness, where perhaps ...more
The only reason I give it 4 stars is because I feel that in times of historical murkiness, where perhaps ...more

A meticulous, compelling history of the Nahua peoples (Aztec, Townsend explains, is a misnomer), told through primary texts in Nahuatl and the people themselves wherever possible.
Townsend is sure to dispel myths and stereotypes. To take a common example, they did not view Hernan Cortés himself as a god, for example. Neither their archival sources nor Cortés' own letters tell anything of the sort. Sacrifices were not done out of mindless bloodlust but often as a political tool to destroy neighbo ...more
Townsend is sure to dispel myths and stereotypes. To take a common example, they did not view Hernan Cortés himself as a god, for example. Neither their archival sources nor Cortés' own letters tell anything of the sort. Sacrifices were not done out of mindless bloodlust but often as a political tool to destroy neighbo ...more

I really enjoyed the intro and first chapter in which Townsend gives a brief but sweeping history from the beginning of agriculture onwards. I was pleased to see in print Townsend’s belief that the Mexica (Aztec) immigrated from as far away as Utah, something I’ve always thought (a partial answer to the question: where did the Anasazi go?).
From chapter 2 on, Townsend draws largely from Nahua texts, a welcome change from the European view of events, and adds needed context to why the conquest hap ...more
From chapter 2 on, Townsend draws largely from Nahua texts, a welcome change from the European view of events, and adds needed context to why the conquest hap ...more

A refreshing look at the Aztecs/Mexica and the arc of their empire. Dr. Townsend goes through the arduous process of researching this book by combing through Nahua texts, providing a different look into the lives of the Mexica from what is typically provided by the Spanish.
Only about a quarter of this book was dedicated to the actual arrival of the Spanish, with half of this book written about pre-conquest times. Providing a great outline of the purest forms of Mexica culture.
There were some rea ...more
Only about a quarter of this book was dedicated to the actual arrival of the Spanish, with half of this book written about pre-conquest times. Providing a great outline of the purest forms of Mexica culture.
There were some rea ...more

"Startlingly -- at least to newcomers -- the market also served as a repository for the urine collected in clay pots in households across the city. Whether people were paid for what they brought or fined for what they didn't bring is not clear. In either case, the practice served two purposes. The collection of waste in one place rendered most of the city very clean. Ammonia was also needed for tanning hides and making salt crystals, and there was no better source than urine form the islands ten
...more

The Aztec story told from their perspective. Its rather enlightening yet it still doesn't shy away from the negatives of the culture, it just puts it into context. If you are at all interested in the history of North America or the Age of Exploration and you probably do if you found this review than you should take a look. It covers the entire history of the civilization from its nomadic roots through the Spanish conquest and after to the assimilation process. Its always a good thing to try to b
...more

This is an important new contribution to the history of indigenous Mesoamerica. The author bases much of her writing on primary sources written in Nahuatl, the language of the indigenous people of Central Mexico at the time of Contact. It is a book, therefore, that pushes the field in the direction of allowing indigenous people to tell their own version of events. To top it all off, the book is written in such an engaging manner that people of all backgrounds and interests will surely be pulled
...more

Just finished this enlightening history of the Mexica (did you know that the Aztecs never called themselves Aztecs?)
All based on texts written by the indigenous people in the 1500-1600s, we get to hear what the Mexica and other Nahua groups have to say about their own history. (After the conquest, people quickly adapted the Roman alphabet to their own language Nahuatl. The idea of writing their own history wasn't new - they already had books filled with standardized pictographic symbols!) ...more
All based on texts written by the indigenous people in the 1500-1600s, we get to hear what the Mexica and other Nahua groups have to say about their own history. (After the conquest, people quickly adapted the Roman alphabet to their own language Nahuatl. The idea of writing their own history wasn't new - they already had books filled with standardized pictographic symbols!) ...more
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