Time Among the Maya

"Cut Stones and Crossroads" and "On Fiji Island" are previous books by Ronald Wright, author of this book concerned with the Maya, who in the first millennium AD, created the most intellectually and artistically advanced civilization native to the Americas. Despite a mysterious collapse in the ninth century and Spanish invasion in the 16th century, some five million people throughout Guatemala, Belize and south-eastern Mexico still speak Maya languages and preserve a Maya identity today. Ronald Wright set out to discover the roots of the Maya and the extent of their survival after centuries of invasion and a recent civil war. He found them fragmented but resilient, struggling to uphold their distinctive traditions - particularly their ancient knowldedge of time, enshrined in a highly sophisticated calendar whose cycles are still being kept after thousands of years. "Time Among the Maya" is the account of his journey - it is at once a travel memoir and the study of a civilization embracing history, politics, anthropology and literature.