Brutality and benevolence : human ethology, culture, and the birth of Mexico
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Brutality and benevolence : human ethology, culture, and the birth of Mexico
（Contributions in Latin American studies, no. 8）
Greenwood Press, 1996
- : hard
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-242) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The 16th-century conquest of Mexico and its effects are best understood as cultural manifestations of animal behavior patterns which humans share with other primates. While Nahuas and Spaniards can be distinguished on the basis of learned cultural differences, such differences only exaggerated particular expressions of the universal behavioral patterns they shared. Brutality and benevolence were used in the same way by both to establish hierarchy and cultural bonding. After the conquest, a new Mexican synthesis could be constructed because of these commonalities.
Alves explores the formation of that synthesis by examining such aspects of material culture as food, clothing, and shelter-especially as they manifest such universal primate tendencies as hierarchy, reciprocity, benevolence, brutality, xenophobia, curiosity, and territoriality. Alves proposes that humans are historically best understood by using current advances in the fields of primatology and ethology. This groundbreaking book will be of great interest to Latin Americanists, historians, and anthropologists.
Table of Contents
Preface Introduction Spanish Culture Aztec Culture Coalitions: An Ethological Account of a Coup The Structures of Material Life: Clothing, Shelter, and Community in Sixteenth Century Mexico Food: Dominance and Benevolence in Colonial New Spain The Pursuit of Justice The Hospital: The Right to Distribute Favor Gender and the Creation of Mexico A Question of Methodology Bibliographical Essay Index
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