About The Book

The Maya of Central America have been called the Greeks of the New World. In the first millennium A.D. they created the most intellectually and artistically advanced civilization native to the Americas, and in ensuing centuries, as neighboring empires fell in warfare and to the Spanish invasion, the Maya endured, shaken but never destroyed.

Ronald Wright’s journey through time and space in Central America explores not only the lands of the ancient Maya, but also the heritage of the five million people who preserve a Mayan identity today. His circular travels begin in tiny Belize, take him through the Guatemalan jungle and into the blood-stained highlands of that sinister republic, and end in Mexico, where the Maya are afflicted by massive development. Blending archaeology, history, ethnology, and journalism, Wright creates a fascinating profile of these “People of Time,” and he employs their famously sophisticated calendar in the narrative of his own journey. Wright’s exploration of the region and its peoples is a perceptive and entertaining chronicle. Time Among the Maya is travel writing at its broadest and best, and confirms Wright’s reputation as a master-craftsman of the genre.

Praise

“Time Among the Maya shows Ronald Wright to be . . . an historical philosopher with a profound understanding of other cultures.”—Jan Morris

“Wright’s unpretentious narrative blends anthropology, archaeology, history, and politics with his own entertaining excursions and encounters, and . . . teaches us a lot about the way a culture endures.”—The New Yorker

‘reading Wright’s book is much like taking a trip to Central America: an experience at turns challenging, lyrical, tragic, uplifting, and ultimately, magical.”—The Hartford Courant

“Well-paced, insightful, and well-written. . . . The need to find the answer to dilemmas, both ancient and modern, makes Time Among the Maya required reading for any student of Meso-American culture.”—San Diego Tribune

“Ronald Wright is a superb travel writer, erudite, humorous, without bias, equipped with a true historian’s nose and the patience to watch the passing scene over warm beer in a fly-blown hotel.”—The Observer (London)