This book is a tour de force about Classic Maya political history, largely from a top-down perspective, as would be expected for a study relying on inscriptions written by the royals themselves. Many archaeologists typically view Maya inscriptions with a grain of salt because of a couple of nagging questions: Did Maya kings actually do what they said they did, and, what does their history signify to the broader society as a whole? Martin seeks answers from a political-anthropology perspective, incorporating archaeological evidence when suitable. His strategy is to detail what the inscriptions signify beyond their literal meaning. In other words, he attempts to convey not only what they said they did but also the broader political significance of it.
Networks of political machinations reveal the nature of Classic Maya political systems, assisted through theories from political anthropology and political science, as well as cross-cultural case studies. In the end,...