Description
Book SynopsisThis translation of a major work in Mexican anthropology argues that Mesoamerican civilization is an ongoing and undeniable force in contemporary Mexican life.
For Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, the remaining Indian communities, the 'de-Indianized' rural mestizo communities, and vast sectors of the poor urban population constitute the México profundo. Their lives and ways of understanding the world continue to be rooted in Mesoamerican civilization. An ancient agricultural complex provides their food supply, and work is understood as a way of maintaining a harmonious relationship with the natural world. Health is related to human conduct, and community service is often part of each individual''s life obligation. Time is circular, and humans fulfill their own cycle in relation to other cycles of the universe.
Since the Conquest, Bonfil argues, the peoples of the México profundo have been dominated by an 'imaginary México' imposed by the West.
Table of Contents
- Translator's Foreword
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Introduction
- Part I. A Civilization Denied
- 1. A Land of Millenarian Civilization
- 2. The Indian Recognized
- 3. De-Indianizing That Which Is Indian
- Part II. How We Came to Be Where We Are
- 4. The Problem of National Culture
- 5. The Colonial Order
- 6. Forging a Nation
- 7. Our (Revolutionized) Modern Times
- 8. The Paths of Indian Survival
- Part III. The National Program and the Civilizational Project
- 9. The Nation We Have Today
- 10. Civilization and Alternatives
- References Cited
- Bibliographic Appendix
- Index
