Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 832 pages
- Published by: Simon & Schuster April 7, 1995
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0671511041
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0671511043
-
Book Dimensions:
9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
- Weighs: 2.6 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
From the author of The Spanish Civil War comes this epic history of the fall of the Aztec empire to Spain.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Digging into thousands of pages of legal testimony given in the 1520s by participants in Cortes's expedition against the Mexico of ancient Mesoamerica, Thomas revisits the Spanish invasion of the Aztec Empire. The result is a richer account of the personalities, events, and social setting of this momentous episode than currently exists in accessible form. The complex genealogical interweaving of Castilian and Mexican royal families, the intricacies of battle strategy and tactics, the labyrinthine political machinations, and the brutal imposition of external standards of behavior and belief--all are described in a gripping narrative by Thomas, a British academic. His sterling achievement is to illustrate the complex historical foundation of modern Mexico. Although the book is intended for a general audience, extensive chapter-by-chapter endnotes and an annotated bibliography of major sources reveal the depth of the author's scholarship. No library should be without this important contribution to Latin American history.
- William S. Dancey, Ohio State Univ., ColumbusCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader ReviewsThis would be worth a look simply because Thomas does what all good historians should: sink their readers deeply into past ages and former cultures by way of a fascinating story. But even better . . . Recent histories of the Spanish Conquest tend to emphasize the atrocities of the conquistadors while upholding the virtues of the indigenous peoples. While well-intentioned (and a needed corrective to chronicles written in the previous 100 years), the approach has an annoying tendency to demonize Europeans, turn the natives into statuary and drain all the drama from the past. So I'm grateful for Hugh Thomas and his neo-revisionist history. The Spaniards are ultimately the heavies, but presented with all their complexities and ambitions on display (who knew Hernan Cortes could be so interesting?). They aren't completely malevolent. Similarly, Thomas avoids the Howard Zinn/PC trap of turning America into Eden and Indians into children by detailing the delicate intertwining of politics and religion in the Mexican (aka Aztec) empire, by displaying the cruelty the Mexica could occasionally summon toward their subjects and by placing it all in the proper cultural context -- as with the Spaniards, you understand why they did what they did, even if you don't approve of it. Wrap an exquisite narrative thread around the whole package and you've got a book for the ages.
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