The Maya Apocalypse and Its Western Roots

By: Amara Solari, Matthew Restall

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Paperback | 26 August 2021

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168 Pages

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13.9 x 21.6 x 1.2

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This fascinating history explores the cultural roots of our civilization's obsession with the end of the world. Busting the myth of the ancient Maya prediction that time would end in 2012, Matthew Restall and Amara Solari build on their previous book, 2012 and the End of the World, to use the Maya case to connect such seemingly disparate historical events as medieval European millenarianism, Moctezuma's welcome to Cortes, Franciscan missionizing in Mexico, prophetic traditions in Yucatan, and the growing belief today in conspiracies and apocalypses. In demystifying the 2012 phenomenon, the authors draw on their decades of scholarship to provide an accessible and engaging explanation of what Mayas and Aztecs really believed, how Judeo-Christian apocalypticism became part of the Indigenous Mesoamerican and modern American worlds, and why millions continue to anticipate an imminent Doomsday.

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Just as each generation believes it has discovered the truth about the past, each generation rewrites prophecy. Having exposed the colonial origins of the 2012 Maya Apocalypse at its vespers, Restall and Solari return to the scene of the crime with a decade of perspective to show how millenarianism or the belief in calculable cosmic destruction and renewal has been both a perennial Western project and a frequent Western projection onto other civilizations. The Maya, thanks to key factors described with clarity and humor by Restall and Solari, are simply among the most recent victims of such backward projection. And yet apocalyptic thinking has also escaped the grasp of Western culture, as any student of cargo cults knows. This is a penetrating and playful examination of an alarming phenomenon that ends with a hard look in the mirror. You may not like what you see, but you’ll love what you read.

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