Critical Evaluation: Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan
Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan is a historical text written by Inga Clendinnen. As a narrative text, Clendinnen centers her main argument on the arrival of the Spanish people in the Yucatan State in Peninsula, how their appearance affected the Mayan civilization, and the struggle that they faced in controlling the Mayan people. Clendinnen’s goal is to describe the success of the Spaniard community to solidify with the Mayan community in the Yucatan. Throughout the book, Clendinnen prepares her narration with the purpose of narrating why many Spaniards were looking for new landf and the reasons that made the community to focus on Yucatan land. The book is important because it gives the reader the understanding of the historical facts that made the Spaniard people travel to Yucatan and why they aimed at conquering the Mayan people. Thus, from the understanding of the purpose of the book, this paper focuses on carrying out a critical analysis of the Clendinnen’s work in order to understand the historical ideas and concept presented by the author.
Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan presents an argument and perspective that is not available in any text or historical book, which makes it to be viewed as a unique and an interesting book. Clendinnen exhibits specific places that portray historical contexts. For this reason, the book is well structured, very readable, and attracts the reader’s attention. For the author of the book to lay out her text such a manner, Clendinnen avoids monotony and unnecessary words that can make the content provided to run across each other. In addition, Clendinnen uses the book’s thesis to make it different from other text touching on the similar subject. The author uses the thesis to bring out a detailed analysis and true narrative on the actual history concerning the Spaniard people and their attempt to conquer the Yucatan land. The thesis of the book makes it interesting to engage by allowing the reader to have a clear idea regarding history that is shared between the Spanish and Mayan people.
To achieve her goal and purpose, Clendinnen focuses on writing ideas that relate to the native society (Mayan people); she pays attention to study about the changes that the Spanish people brought in Yucatan. Clendinnen does her research by reviewing the historical background of the Mayan people and the possible changes that happened when the Spanish people arrived in their land. Clendinnen shows that most of the Mayan people were actually changing their lifestyle after the Spanish conquered the Yucatan land. The author points out that the Spanish people wanted to change the Mayan society religiously; but as the community had specific beliefs, it was difficult for the Spanish to implement the idea of Christianity in the region. Clendinnen pinpoint that despite significant effort from the Spanish people to convert the native community to Christianity, they did not succeed as the Mayan people who had already identified their religion opposed the idea. Therefore, it is open that Clendinnen uses her understanding of the Mayan people to present historical ideas and concept that created the difference between the Spanish and Mayan community.
The book has both strengths and weaknesses. Looking at the setting of the book content, Clendinnen starts by giving the reader a detailed explanation that concerns the failure of the Spanish people to conquer the Mayan community. Further, Clendinnen then suggests that the Spanish people succeeded to take Yucatan land and after that the Mayans accepted civilization and change ideas that the Spaniard presented to them. This demonstrates that the book is well arranged and builds a clear narration regarding the way one community changed the other. Clendinnen does a good work by showing the reader the way the Spaniard learned to have many advantages and used them to modify the Mayan community perspective on lifestyle, behaviors, and religion. The most negative feature of Clendinnen’s work is that she does not define her thesis clearly, which requires the reader to deduce the book’s thesis by looking at the list of chapter titles, reading the book content, and reviewing the conclusion, which does not present Clendinnen’s primary arguments.
From the review of the book Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatan, as a reader, one can note that the author presents a historical piece that concern the native society and the reasons that made the Spanish community attempt to take their land. From a personal perspective, I think that Clendinnen’s historical context is well organized and the book presents clear ideas regarding the history of the native community. The historical witness that Clendinnen uses to write her book suggests that the Spanish people struggled to implement change in the Yucatan land, but as a powerful and a resourceful community, they were able to learn from their mistakes, which allowed them to come up with the best ways to overcome the Mayan people.
