The author analyzes how war and human sacrifices, the culminating ritual of periodical public festivities, were used in the ancient Mesoamerican societies as ideological mechanisms by the governing group to stay in power. "From the Chiapas forests to the arid plains of northern Sinaloa, the ruling group of imperialist-minded societies such as Teotihuacán, Tula and the Mexicas, of cities-states such as Palenque and Xochicalco, or headquartered societies such as those developed in northwestern Mexico, made use of the same ideological mechanisms to maintain power: ritualized war, human sacrifice and collective celebrations. In this book, these mechanisms are analyzed from a new perspective by virtue of their social efficacy and not only their cosmic effectiveness. Through a "Canettian" position and with archaeological, historical and iconographic data, the author proposes that ideology in prehispanic Mexico was the vehicle through which the powerful converted the ruled into a mass, "that happy moment in which nobody it is more or better than another." To this end, the huge public squares were used, where collective ceremonies were held periodically in which the climax was the ritual execution of captives and slaves. Whoever ordered, presided and sometimes executed human sacrifice was the ruler. Deciding on life and death was the greatest seal of his power; this allowed him to maintain the order of the world: he commanded and the others obeyed." (HKB Translation) --Verso cover.