I second this recommendation, with the caveat that it contains a much higher degree of horror than almost anything I've ever read, including accounts of Nazi death camps.
I read that same review a couple of weeks ago and it made a deep impression. It's one thing to know "the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice", and another to be confronted with the scale, sadism and calculation with which it was practiced.
You are right. I should have made that warning. This is not for the faint of heart.
"If anything, the Spaniards lacked the conceptual framework to fully comprehend the industrial-scale, ever-so-civilized and bureaucratic evil of the Mexica, and so they inadvertently downplayed it
[...]
No, the mass-butchery of wailing, pleading captives of both sexes and all ages was the core activity around which their entire civilization and society revolved. Their art, their music, their poetry, their approach to warfare, their entire economic system, their kaleidoscopic array of holidays and festivals, all were singularly dedicated to the killing (often preceded by inventive torture) of helpless human beings"
I read that same review a couple of weeks ago and it made a deep impression. It's one thing to know "the Aztecs practiced human sacrifice", and another to be confronted with the scale, sadism and calculation with which it was practiced.