Conquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest

Conquistadores: A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest by Fernando Cervantes

Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus's first landing in the Caribbean in 1492, Spain conquered the two most formidable civilizations of the Americas: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizzaro, and the other explorers and soldiers that took part in these expeditions dedicated their lives to seeking political and religious glory, helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. But centuries later, these conquistadores have become the stuff of nightmares. In their own time, they were glorified as heroic adventurers spreading Christian culture. Today, they stand condemned for their cruelty and exploitation as men who decimated ancient civilizations and carried out horrific atrocities in their pursuit of gold and glory.

In Conquistadores, acclaimed Mexican historian Fernando Cervantes -- himself a descendent of one of the conquistadores -- cuts through the layers of myth and fiction to help us better understand the context that gave rise to the conquistadores' actions. Drawing upon previously untapped primary sources that include diaries, letters, chronicles, and polemical treatises, Cervantes immerses us in the late-medieval imperialist and religious world of sixteenth-century Spain -- as unfamiliar to us now as the indigenous peoples of the New World were to the conquistadores themselves. Cervantes' thought-provoking, illuminating account reframes the story of the Spanish conquest of the New World and the half-century that irrevocably altered the course of history.

Viking, Hardcover, 1st Edition, 1st Printing, 2021