Ancient Maya Politics

Mayanists have been waiting on "Simon's book" for years, and we are finally rewarded with this comprehensive study that is every bit as good as we anticipated, and which contains a host of wonderful surprises. The format--a hefty single-author book--provides space for Martin to expand (judiciously) into theory and cross-cultural comparisons while also drilling down into illuminating case studies across a whole range of subjects. The result is a work that provides tons of rich detail embedded within a larger and very compelling argument about the nature of Classic Maya politics.Martin is an extremely clear writer with an aversion to expensive words, which makes those arguments easy and sometimes genuinely thrilling to follow, and the book is abundantly illustrated with clean black-and-white line drawings and photographs. It also has loads of endnotes that provide further details on points touched in passing in the main text.There is no point saying that "every Maya researcher needs to read this book" because everyone will. But this book really deserves to be held up for scholars in other fields--whether archaeologists of other world areas, or historians and political scientists of a comparative bent--as THE book on Maya politics."Politics" is of course a vast and fuzzy-edged subject area, and the topics covered here are commensurately broad. An entire chapter on marriage lays out its role in the realpolitik of the Classic period but, by necessity, entails a rigorously-detailed analysis of gender in Classic courtly life along the way. A chapter on the sacred dimensions of Maya kingship--what made rulers not just "lords" but "holy lords"--demands an updated primer on many features of ritual and belief (and shows just how far we've come from the days of "shaman kings"). And so on.A quick item of note for those in Academe. The "politics" addressed here is more "sovereignty" than "means of production": the focus is on the constitution of authority, the networks that perpetuated a shared-if-slightly-variable political culture across the lowlands, and the emergence and maintenance of hegemony. Martin is explicit about this, and even so he considers in some detail the mechanics of on-the-ground administration that are maddeningly absent from the epigraphic record but sometimes discernible through dirt archaeology or a conjunctive approach (a good example being his discussion of markets and the place of the famous Chiik Nahb murals from Calakmul in that particular academic debate). But for anyone desperate to know about "local politics" of the neighborhood and rural village variety, or exactly how the presence of an ajaw ("lord, king") was felt by subject common people, there's not a lot of that here (but you should read it anyway, it's good for you).In sum: this book is excellent, full of detail but broad in scope, and the writing is clear and accessible. I highly, highly recommend it.

At $135, a book like this better be good. It is very good. If you are interested in the Maya, you will be reading this book.It was shipped with a thin cardboard cover on it. The book arrived with the corners of the cover bent and damaged. When you pay $135 for something, you expect it to be shipped with care, not shipped as if it were some rusty old tool that can take lots of abuse.

This is a fascinating book written for professionals or advanced amateurs. Extremely technical, and worth the effort.

Clear, concise, comprehensive, and a most needed up-dated analysis on Classic Maya Politics with detailed examples and explanations.