Customer Reviews

The Moche (Peoples of America)

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Garth Bawden starts to point out that a civilization does not have a certain date at which it starts nor ends. The Moche people also had their ancestors and evolved into a new civilization. This all happened in different timeframes in the northern, middle and southern part of their reign. Garth has little concern for ceramics but has many theories to prove his view. The book is devided in the social part of the moche and the second part about their origins (shouldn't this be the way around?). In all there are many dublicates in both parts. This means that the book is rather hard to read. The end of the book is also less elaborate, as if he wanted to end this torture. Certainly not suited for your first aquitance with the Moche, but it has some interesting chapters. The photo's are of very poor quality.

Bawden is often quoted for his archaelogical studies of the North of Peru, so I bought his book in advance of my tourist trip to the Moche sites, of which I knew next to nothing. I spent many disappointing hours trying to study this book but I was not able even to finish it. The book is terribly dry and while it is not strictly limited to a list of archeological finds, that is clearly the forte of the author. The style is way more awkward than the average scholarly text, the photos of which there are many are absolutely substandard (this must be the fault of the printer). But more substantially, I came out of my struggle with this book without even a half way understanding of what distinguished the Moche from the previous civilizations, from the contemporary ones, and from those that followed it. If you are serious in wanting to study the Moche, I am sure that this could be a useful addition to your text list, but if you want to read just one book, choose something else.