The Angry Aztecs (Horrible Histories) - Terry Deary

The Angry Aztecs is another in the popular “Horrible Histories” range of books aimed at children, but which can also be quite fun and enlightening for we older ones. They’re a really easy read but despite their slim volumes, inclusion of cartoon illustrations and appeal to the kiddies, they contain a mine of intriguing information about past civilisations and suchlike. Of course, with a name like “Horrible Histories” you expect a certain amount of ...
...the Horrible Histories are written by Terry Deary, who obviously has a real passion for bringing history to life. In this book, "The Angry Aztecs", he starts off by giving us some information about the Mayan and Olmec people –the previous great civilisations before the Aztecs became great. A great mystery surrounding the Maya is the fact that they built large cities with huge pyramids and then at around 900CE, they just disappeared – still ... more

The Angry Aztecs is another in the popular “Horrible Histories” range of books aimed at children, but which can also be quite fun and enlightening for we older ones. They’re a really easy read but despite their slim volumes, inclusion of cartoon illustrations and appeal to the kiddies, they contain a mine of intriguing information about past civilisations and suchlike. Of course, with a name like “Horrible Histories” you expect a certain amount of gore… which the books gleefully deliver.

All the Horrible Histories are written by Terry Deary, who obviously has a real passion for bringing history to life. In this book, "The Angry Aztecs", he starts off by giving us some information about the Mayan and Olmec people –the previous great civilisations before the Aztecs became great. A great mystery surrounding the Maya is the fact that they built large cities with huge pyramids and then at around 900CE, they just disappeared – still living on in rural communities, but the cities were completely abandoned. To this day no-one knows why…

The early history of the Aztecs if then discussed, and of course why they were so angry – as the book’s title describes them. They became great warriors and eventually turned on those who had subjected them, becoming the most powerful people in Mexico at that time. They had a few unfortunate traits however – not least of which is their habit ripping out living peoples’ hearts in ritual human sacrifice – nice, eh? They had a huge number of superstitious beliefs, had some rather odd dietary habits, some medical methods that you really wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of, an advanced calendar (that incidentally predicts the end of the world in 2012), and a very hierarchical society with priests at the top. Their sports were a quite intriguing as well, including the ball game that you might have seen in the animated movie “Eldorado”. Children didn’t have much luck in the Aztec society, but in general it was better than being a captured enemy – the Aztecs would actually try to not kill too many of their enemies so they were sure of having enough human sacrifices. This probably made sense to the soldiers who might have ended up having their heart ripped out at the top of a pyramid themselves otherwise! The Aztecs had a brutal and cruel society, which came to an end brutally and cruelly at the hands of the Spanish Conquistadores led by Hernan Cortes.

Out of the three Horrible Histories I’ve read so far, this was by far the least impressive. Deary tries far too hard to be funny here, with the result that he usually fails The 128 pages have far more filler material than the others, too, though it’s still quite a good read with many interesting facts spread throughout it, and Martin Brown’s illustrations were pretty good though perhaps not among his best in this series.

Despite its failings I think anyone, obviously especially a young person, with an interest in history that doesn’t necessarily extend to serious academia would enjoy it. It does lack the sparkle and quality of information that the other books have though, so it’s only marginally recommended.

The book retails at £4.99 and Amazon have it new for £3.99. You’re best off getting it in a collection with some others in the series, especially as this isn’t as good as many of the others.

(NB - not all of the ratings below are really applicable to this as it's not a work of fiction.) 

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