Camilla Townsend Bücher

„ES GIBT NICHT VIELE BÜCHER, DIE UNSEREN BLICK AUF DIE VERGANGENHEIT VÖLLIG VERÄNDERN. DIES IST EINES VON IHNEN.“ PETER FRANKOPAN Im November 1519 kommt es zur weltberühmten Begegnung von Hernando Cortés mit dem Aztekenherrscher Moctezuma. Was damals passierte und was danach geschah, ist oft erzählt worden, aber vor allem so, wie die Spanier es uns präsentiert haben. Camilla Townsend stellt in ihrem glänzend erzählten, preisgekrönten Buch die faszinierende, vielschichtige Geschichte der Azteken konsequent aus deren eigener Perspektive dar. Wir haben gelernt, dass die Schrift den Europäern gehörte. Doch nach der Ankunft der Spanier und unbemerkt von diesen nutzten die Azteken das lateinische Alphabet, um ihre Geschichte in ihrer Sprache Nahuatl selbst aufzuschreiben. Auf der Grundlage dieser Texte korrigiert Camilla Townsend unsere Vorstellungen von der aztekischen Kultur gewaltig. Anstatt den europäischen Stereotypen einer exotischen, blutrünstigen Gesellschaft zu folgen, zeichnet sie ein sehr viel menschlicheres Bild jener Indigenen, die sich selbst Mexica nannten. Sie macht auch deutlich, dass die Eroberung durch die Spanier weder eine Apokalypse noch der Ursprung der Mexikaner war. Denn das Volk der Mexica kapitulierte nicht einfach vor der spanischen Kultur und Kolonisierung. Stattdessen richteten sie ihre politischen Loyalitäten neu aus, übernahmen neue Technologien und hielten durch. Glänzend erzählt, erkundet dieses Buch die Erfahrungen eines einst mächtigen Volkes, das mit dem Trauma der Eroberung konfrontiert war und Wege fand zu überleben. Die Welt mit den Augen der Azteken betrachtet Camilla Townsend korrigiert jahrhundertealte europäische Stereotype Glänzend erzählt in sehr viel menschlicheres Bild der aztekischen Kultur Ausgezeichnet mit dem Cundill History Prize, dem bestdotierten Sachbuchpreis weltweit

This study of colonial Mexico's Nahuatl-language annals brings the xiuhpohualli tradition to life. Author Camilla Townsend has deduced the authorship of most of the texts and thus is able to place the works in their rightful contexts and render the stories more accessible to modern ears than they have been before.

Fifth Sun offers a comprehensive history of the Aztecs, spanning the period before conquest to a century after the conquest, based on rarely-used Nahuatl- language sources written by the indigenous people.

Focusing on the economic divergence between the United States and Latin America in the nineteenth century, this study by Camilla Townsend challenges the notion that the Protestant work ethic was the key to American success. Instead, it posits that differing attitudes towards workers, rooted in colonial practices, played a crucial role in shaping economic outcomes. Townsend's innovative analysis offers a fresh perspective on the historical factors influencing development in these regions.

Camilla Townsend's stunning book differs from all previous biographies of Pocahontas in capturing how similar seventeenth-century Native Americans were--in the way they saw, understood, and struggled to control their world--not only to the invading English but to ourselves. Neither naïve nor innocent, Indians like Pocahontas and her father, the powerful king Powhatan, confronted the vast might of the English with sophistication, diplomacy, and violence. Indeed, Pocahontas's life is a testament to the subtle intelligence that Native Americans, always aware of their material disadvantages, brought against the military power of the colonizing English. Resistance, espionage, collaboration, deception: Pocahontas's life is shown as a road map to Native American strategies of defiance exercised in the face of overwhelming odds and in the hope for a semblance of independence worth the name.

This set includes Native America: A History (ISBN 978-1-4051-6057-5) and American Indian History: A Documentary Reader (ISBN 978-1-4051-5908-1).

The essential guide to the world of Aztec mythology, based on Nahuatl-language sources that challenge the colonial history passed down to us by the Spanish. How did the jaguar get his spots? What happened to the four suns that came before our own? Where was Aztlan, mythical homeland of the Aztecs? For decades, the popular image of the Mexica people - better known today as the Aztecs - has been defined by the Spaniards who conquered them. Their salacious stories of pet snakes, human sacrifice and towering skull racks have masked a complex world of religious belief. To reveal the rich mythic tapestry of the Aztecs, Camilla Townsend returns to the original tales, told at the fireside by generations of Indigenous Nahuatl-speakers. Through their voices we learn the contested histories of the Mexica and their neighbours in the Valley of Mexico - the foundations of great cities, the making and breaking of political alliances, the meddling of sometimes bloodthirsty gods - and understand more clearly how they saw their world and their place in it. The divine principle of Ipalnemoani connected humans with all of nature and spiritual beliefs were woven through the fabric of Aztec life, from the sacred ministrations of the ticitl, midwives whose rituals saw women through childbirth, to the inevitable passage to Mictlan, 'our place of disappearing together' - the land of the dead.

Examines a rare set of family documents from central Mexico, originally written in Nahuatl, from the seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. Illustrates a complex indigenous world, with the challenges and opportunities of life within the Spanish colonial system.