I was looking forward to this book just because of the sheer volume of psuedoscience and misinformation out there. Thankfully this book cuts through most of the fluff out there and sets the record straight in a relatively short volume. That being said, I was expecting much more in the way of actual analysis of the Mayan culture.



Aveni is clear and articulate throughout, but I see this book taking a wrong turn in two ways. First, he spends a lot of time discussing end of time, apocalypse, etc myths. This is great background information; a consistency throughout human history of what is essentially human paranoia. As if the human condition has some part in our need to seek doom and gloom in our lives. While this is important to establishing that 2012 paranoia is just another made up event for people to spread fear, it tends to be the driving theme in the novel. From an expert in Mayan astronomy, I would have expected more analysis of the Maya and less of overall human condition themes.



Second, there's an inherent assumption that readers of this book have taken a look at other 2012 writers. The nitty gritty analysis section tended to be more of a refutation of other authors' work. While this is important to show how other authors are liberally interpreting the data, it doesn't do me much good when I haven't been initiated into the world of 2012 paranoia.



Regardless of my nitpickings, I would recommend this book for anyone wanting some factual and social context regarding 2012. However, I really felt like this book is the cliff's notes or layman's version of a much greater work waiting to be written. While reading I really found myself wanting more information, more data, so that I could draw the same conclusions that Aveni does. I wanted to know more about the Mayan calendar, how the 2012 date came about, what the Maya say specifically about this time period, etc. And I suspect that many of my questions would remain unanswered due to a lack of evidence.

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