7 /10 1 Votes7
Translator Teresa Lavender Fagan Publication date 1965 Media type Print Published in english 1993 | 3.5/5 Country France Published in English 1993 Originally published 1965 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Original title Le Rêve mexicain ou la pensée interrompue Similar Trois Villes saintes, Le Livre des fuites, Poisson d'or, Voyage à Rodrigues, Le Déluge |
The Mexican Dream, Or, The Interrupted Thought of Amerindian Civilizations is an English translation of an essay written in French by J. M. G. Le Clézio.
Contents
Contents
Subjects
Aim
In the essay, Le Clézio conducts an inquiry into the brutal disappearance of the indigenous cultures of Mesoamerica in the 16th century, particularly the end of the Mexican civilization at the hands of the Spanish conquistadors. The author analyses the personalities of characters such as Hernán Cortés, La Malinche, Moctezuma II, Cuauhtémoc, and other key players in the conquest of Mesoamerica. He refers extensively to the descriptions offered by Bernal Díaz del Castillo in his Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España in analysing the events. He imagines what might have happened if the native populations had not been reduced to silence by brutality, and what their impact on Western civilization might have been. Understanding that the West holds both economic and cultural sway over the contemporary world because of the colonization of America, he wonders how the cultural life of Mesoamerica – particularly that of the Aztecs – would have evolved if the arrival of the Europeans had not decimated the indigenous societies through war, disease and slavery.
Publication history/Editions
11 editions published between 1988 and 2004 in 5 languages and held by 835 libraries worldwide
First French Edition
second French Edition
other French Edition
Also published in French under Le Clézio, J.M.G. (1992). Le Rêve mexicain. Paris: Gallimard Folio. p. 273. ISBN 978-2-07-032680-8.
First English Edition
Second English Edition
Reviews
Le Figaro and Kirkus Reviews reviewed the book.