Showing titles in Mexico

Explore the legends, gods, and cosmic cycles that defined one of the most powerful civilizations in the Americas. Far from a dry academic text, Myths, Gods, and Rituals of Aztec Mythology brings these ancient stories to life with vivid detail and cultural insight. Listeners are introduced to the core beliefs of the Aztec people, including their view of the cosmos, the importance of rituals, and their reverence for nature's forces. Through simple yet powerful storytelling, Matthew Torres offers a beginner-friendly entry point into one of history's most fascinating mythologies.

Combining on-the-ground reporting and in-depth discussions with people on the frontlines of Mexico's drug war, To Die in Mexico tells behind-the-scenes stories that address the causes and consequences of Mexico's multibillion dollar drug trafficking business. John Gibler looks beyond the myths that pervade government and media portrayals of the unprecedented wave of violence now pushing Mexico to the breaking point.

Bad Mexicans tells the dramatic story of the magonistas, the migrant rebels who sparked the 1910 Mexican Revolution from the United States. Led by a brilliant but ill-tempered radical named Ricardo Flores Magon, the magonistas were a motley band of journalists, miners, migrant workers, and more, who organized thousands of Mexican workers—and American dissidents—to their cause. Determined to oust Mexico's dictator, Porfirio Diaz, the rebels had to outrun and outsmart the swarm of US authorities vested in protecting the Diaz regime.

In this new Captivating History audiobook, you will discover amazing little-known facts about the Mayans as well as the truth about their remarkable history.

A New York Times bestseller! “Lively and absorbing. . ." — The New York Times Book Review "Engrossing." —Wall Street Journal “Entertaining and well-researched . . . ” —Houston Chronicle Three noted Texan writers combine forces to tell the real story of the Alamo, dispelling the myths...

T. R. Fehrenbach brilliantly delineates the contrasts and conflicts between the many Mexicos, unraveling the history while weaving a fascinating tapestry of beauty and brutality: the Amerindians, who wrought from the vulnerable land a great indigenous Meso-American civilization by the first millennium BC; the successive reigns of Olmec, Maya, Toltec, and Mexic masters, who ruled through an admirably efficient bureaucracy and the power of the priests, propitiating the capricious gods with human sacrifices; the Spanish conquistadors, and much more.

For many years, the Aztecs have captured our imaginations. Stories from the original European invaders combined with unique, awe-inspiring ruins and legends that speak of palaces of gold create an image of Aztec society defined by grandeur, wealth, and splendor. But who exactly were the Aztecs? Where did they come from? How did they rise to control such a wide expanse of land? These are just some of the questions that this new captivating history audiobook will answer.

For hundreds of years, the history of the conquest of Mexico and the defeat of the Aztecs has been told in the words of the Spanish victors. Miguel León-Portilla has long been at the forefront of expanding that history to include the voices of indigenous peoples. In this new and updated edition...

One day a few years ago, 300 migrants were kidnapped between the remote desert towns of Altar, Mexico, and Sasabe, Arizona. A local priest got 120 released, many with broken ankles and other marks of abuse, but the rest vanished. Óscar Martinez, a young writer from El Salvador, was in Altar soon after the abduction, and his account of the migrant disappearances is only one of the harrowing stories he garnered from two years spent traveling up and down the migrant trail from Central America and across the US border. 

For an enthralling listen that combines the rigor of history with the allure of ancient mysteries and modern challenges buy this audiobook.

Continue the journey through the history, adventure, tension, and dangers faced by the Conquistadors, led by Hernan Cortes - the Alexander of the Americas - as they continue their epic tale of conquest against the Mexican Empire. After Cortes' expulsion from the Mexican capital on the much-lamented Night of Sorrows, the Conquistadors are reeling and their alliances crumbling. Hernan Cortes, unbowed and undaunted, refuses to give up the fight and determines to stay the course of the war against the Aztecs, and his own countrymen, to its bitter conclusion.

The Aztecs believed offerings of human blood and human lives were necessary to the continued running of the universe. Indeed, in Aztec myths, the gods themselves make sacrifices of their own blood and even of their entire bodies in order to create a universe humans can live in and, in one story, to create humans themselves. To the ancient Aztecs, these practices seemed fitting, necessary, and honorable, helping to connect the world of humans to the divine world of the gods, a universe that in Aztec myth took shape in cycles of creation, destruction, and rebirth.

By July 1536, Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (c. 1490 - 1559) and three other survivors had walked 2,500 miles from Texas, across northern Mexico, to Sonora and ultimately to Mexico City. Cabeza de Vaca's account of this astonishing journey is now recognized as one of the great travel stories of all time and a touchstone of New World literature.

Un viaje narrativo al corazón del México ancestral, donde mitos, poder y pasiones revelan los secretos de una civilización que marcó nuestra historia. ¿Por qué Carlos I nunca recibió a Hernando Cortés en la corte? ¿Por qué nunca lo nombró virrey? ¿Por qué, salvo el marquesado del Valle de Oaxaca, nunca le dio ningún cargo? ¿Por qué Cortés murió frustrado en España? ¿El Capitán General sabía o no de la viruela?

Around the world, certain drinks - especially those of the intoxicating kind - are synonymous with their peoples and cultures. For Mexico, this drink is tequila. For many, tequila can conjure up scenes of body shots on Cancún bars and coolly garnished margaritas on sandy beaches. Its power is equally strong within Mexico, though there the drink is more often sipped rather than shot, enjoyed casually among friends, and used to commemorate occasions from the everyday to the sacred.

In this comprehensive survey, updated for this new edition, Henderson explores the entire Maya cultural tradition, from the earliest traces of settlement through the period of the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. His wide-ranging account treats diverse aspects of the Maya world, from religion and philosophy to the environments of the various Maya peoples, using deciphered Maya texts to reconstruct the ancient societies.

This eye-opening book tells the true story of an obsessive quest to find El Dorado, set against the backdrop of Elizabethan political intrigue and a competition with Spanish conquistadors for the legendary city’s treasure. “[A] breezy tale starring an audacious hero." —Wall Street Journal...

The true story of the city of Port Royal in Jamaica. In 1692, an earthquake and tidal wave caused the city to sink beneath the sea. Robert F. Marx was one of the men caught up in the legends of buried treasure and this audiobook describes the fulfillment of his childhood dream: a two-and-a-half year exploration of the historic Jamaican port. The first investigation of the site by a trained marine archaeologist, his expedition discovered thousands of perfectly preserved artifacts of life in the 17th century city.

As late as the 1960s, tacos were virtually unknown outside Mexico and the American Southwest. Within fifty years the United States had shipped taco shells everywhere from Alaska to Australia, Morocco to Mongolia. But how did this tasty hand-held food - and Mexican food more broadly - become so ubiquitous? In Planet Taco, Jeffrey Pilcher traces the historical origins and evolution of Mexico's national cuisine, explores its incarnation as a Mexican American fast-food, shows how surfers became global pioneers of Mexican food, and how Corona beer conquered the world.

Malintzin was the indigenous woman who translated for Hernando Cortes in his dealings with the Aztec emperor Moctezuma in the days of 1519 to 1521. The Spanish called her doña Marina, and she has become known to posterity as La Malinche. As Malinche, she has long been regarded as a traitor to her people, a dangerously sexy, scheming woman who gave Cortes whatever he wanted out of her own self-interest. The life of the real woman, however, was much more complicated.