The Heart of the Sky: Travels Among the Maya

Part travelogue, part anthropological study and part cultural history, this book attempts to place the extant seven million Maya of Mexico and Central America--most live in Guatemala and Honduras--into a contemporary perspective. Canby finds that far from dying out, as is commonly supposed, the Maya have made accommodations to modern life, achieved a strange blend of their ancient religion with Catholicism and survived genocidal onslaughts by the Guatemalan military in the past decade. A New Yorker staff writer, he painstakingly details the history of the Mayan people, but in quoting scholars, archaeologists and the Maya themselves he writes in such polished blocks of prose as to be stylistically irritating. The book, nonetheless, is a clear-sighted and politically responsible piece of work. Canby, who is obviously courageous and adventurous, even foolhardy at times, managed to learn a great deal about this tenacious, much-abused people. (June)