New Book about Modern Maya

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So much attention is given to the ancient Maya—the Classic Period Maya of a thousand years ago whose pyramids and inscriptions are so fascinating—that the modern Maya are too often forgotten. That's why I am a sucker for anything that focuses some of the 2012 spotlight on living communities.

Macduff Everton is a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler and Islands magazines who has been working and photographing in the Maya region for four decades. His new book, The Modern Maya: Incidents of Travel and Friendship in Yucatán, from the University of Texas Press, "updates his portrait of the modern Maya, while investigating the effects of NAFTA, tourism, the evangelical movement, world trade and maquiladoras, racism, sexism, and drugs on Maya communities."

In the book, Everton promises "dramatic stories of how individuals and families have seen a way of life that was centered around the milpa (farm) and the cultivation of tropical forest products transformed by the effects of globalization and the necessity to labor for wages" and also "reveals the amazing adaptability of the Maya, who hold onto the essence of their culture despite all the destructive pressures from the outside world." [LINK]->