Time Among the Maya: Travels in Belize, Guatemala, and Mexico

by Ronald Wright

Release Date: 30 September, 2000

Edition: Paperback

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The Maya Never Left

Wright has done the modern Maya a service by calling attention to their continued existence.

However, he seems infatuated with antiquity and the signs of its persistence and fails, sometimes in serious ways, to account for the nobility of the modern Maya's grim and successful struggle to survive.

Wright also can't help slipping in "green" comments and digs at multi-nationals, stupid governments (oxymoron), and exploitative ladinos. These targets are too easy. For example, he sloughs off milpa agriculture almost entirely and even comes close to lamenting the "death of the forests" that some misguided types think it causes.

What causes over-farming is over-population and neither I nor Wright will convince the Maya to let infant mortality assert itself again since its virtual demise in the last two decades.

Wright does, however, have a feel for the Maya and that makes his book a worthy contribution. His search for X-Cacal Guardia and the resultant events should lead readers to study Yucatan's Caste War and further consider the Modern Maya's view of themselves.

Current Reference Work

I read this pretty quickly. There's no problem with knowing what the author is trying to say. I found the representation to be a little full of sad satire and sorry history lessens but then again the reality really has been horrific.

I will hang on to this and use it as a reference. I always find it interesting the way several 1st person accounts of a like place will produce inconsistencies in attitudes and reactions.