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In an astonishing work of scholarship that reads like an adventure thriller, historian Buddy Levy records the last days of the Aztec empire and the two men at the center of an epic clash of cultures.
“I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.” —Hernán Cortés
It was a moment unique in human history, the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. Only one would survive the encounter. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico with a roughshod crew of adventurers and the intent to expand the Spanish empire. Along the way, this brash and roguish conquistador schemed to convert the native inhabitants to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in his intentions is one of the most remarkable—and tragic—aspects of this unforgettable story of conquest.
In Tenochtitlán, the famed City of Dreams, Cortés met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, ruler of fifteen million people, and commander of the most powerful military machine in the Americas. Yet in less than two years, Cortés defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astonishing military campaigns ever waged. Sometimes outnumbered in battle thousands-to-one, Cortés repeatedly beat seemingly impossible odds. Buddy Levy meticulously researches the mix of cunning, courage, brutality, superstition, and finally disease that enabled Cortés and his men to survive.
Conquistador is the story of a lost kingdom—a complex and sophisticated civilization where floating gardens, immense wealth, and reverence for art stood side by side with bloodstained temples and gruesome rites of human sacrifice. It’s the story of Montezuma—proud, spiritual, enigmatic, and doomed to misunderstand the stranger he thought a god. Epic in scope, as entertaining as it is enlightening, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.
An Excellent Read
| Customer Rating:  | | "Men of God and men of war have strange affinities" Levy quotes Cormac McCarthy at the outset of this fascinating narrative of Hernàn Cortés and Montezuma. The quote could hardly be more appropriate, since both men were undoubtedly, each in their own way, exactly that: men of war and men of God. It makes for a heady mix: Cortés a pious Spaniard who unhesitatingly committed mass murder, Montezuma the absolute ruler of an empire both capable of both civil achievement and horrendous human sacrifice. The author's achievement is to relate the chain of events in a fascinating, eyewitness-quality way that leaves one marvelling at the audacity, ruthlessness and uncanny luck of the Gran Conquistador, whose character gives one the shivers, even while it's impossible not to admire his competence. Cortés was his own man who made his own decisions, while Montezuma, for all his power, comes across as a prisoner of his elevated position, his advisors, his high priests and his gods. He certainly made the tragic mistake of not being as ruthless from the start as his opponent was, every moment of every day. This is a most enjoyable book, a great read even for those familiar with the story of the Spanish conquests in the Americas. It is also mercifully free of irritating references to future, unrelated events, of the kind that Michael Wood so liberally sprinkles his Conquistadors with, even going so far as to label them the precursors of today's economic globalisation. Buddy Levy is not guilty of any opinion-mongering: he leaves the reader to make up his own mind. It's very respectful of him, and I respect him the more for it. |
Fantastic journey
| Customer Rating: | | The author takes you on this fantastic journey with Cortes and I must say that I am delighted with they way he describes one of the greatest efforts of all explorers to ever be undertaken. Enjoy! |
I love books like this
| Customer Rating: | | Great book! It was a quick read and was very enjoyable. Mr. Levy does great job of telling a story and providing detail without bogging things down. You get facts and info as part of the story, it's done very well. Hernan Cortez is a truly one of a kind historical figure, I would highly reccomend this book to anyone who loves history. |
Just more of the same lies...
| Customer Rating:  | | These "historical" accounts are nothing more than a further rehash of the same old lies told by the Europeans. There was never a "King" in Mexico. The title was "Supreme Speaker" and he could be removed from office. The Mexicans were never conquered, they sent the Spaniards totally defeated from Tenochtitlan. The Spanish were from the filthy, disease ridden, continent of Europe where the plague, smallpox and open sewers were the norm. The Spaniards won because they carried smallpox which the daily bathing Mexicans had no immunity to. The numbers of sacrifices were very greatly exagerated by the Spaniards who wished to rewrite history. If you want to talk about human sacrifice, how many "witches" did the Christians burn, drown, hang or torture to death? That number is in the millions and dwarfs by any comparison, the number of cult sacrifices in Mexico. The "Historians" never tell you that there was a civil war raging in Mexico between the Toltecs and the Aztecs, as the Toltec had banned the practice of human sacrifice. It was in this climate that the Europeans entered the picture with their insatiable greed and arrogance. The Spaniards killed 94% of the Mexican people and this was the greatest holocaust in the history of the world and the second greatest crime of humanity (the attempted extinction of the bison by the Americans was the worst). Mexico had advanced mathematics, including the invention of zero, place number notation and calculus. They had an advanced knowledge of the universe, knew of Pluto, had the most advanced calendar in the world that was only bested recently using a supercomputer. The Europeans gathered all the written texts of the pre-Columbian people and burned it all. How convenient for those who always seek to destroy the truth and re-write history. Mexico also developed three fifths of the world's food crops and developed cotton which was the prime motivation for the industrial revolution in Europe which was financed by the incredible amount of gold and silver stolen from Mexico. Over 50% of the gold in the world today was stolen out of Mexico. At the time of the "conquest" Mexico was the most culturally advanced nation on earth, with aqueducts, fountains, flush toilets, sewage treatment, zoos, floating gardens and the largest pyramids and cities on earth. Even the Spaniards thought that they had walked into a "fairy kingdom". The Spanish lied and the "native accounts" were told before the boards of the Spanish inquistion. The surviving Mexicans knew that any accounts they gave could render them "heretics" or "devil worshippers" who would be tortured and burned. These are the "truthful accounts" cited by the Europeans in their deceitful corruption of history. After nearly being exterminated 500 years ago, the Mexicans are now the sixth largest population in the world, recovering and advancing at an unbelievable rate. In closing, imagine if the only view of European history was the regime of the Nazis and their despicable crimes. Imagine if any knowledge of Mozart, Michelangelo or Newton was ignored and we only spoke about the witch burnings of the Christian inquisitions. That would be equivalent to how these modern authors insist on telling the story of pre-invasion America. Remember, in those days, their were no borders and all the native American people travelled freely. The Toltec trade empire stretched form Central America, north to Canada and to both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The emblem of Quetzalcoatl has even turned up in the "mound builder" cities of the Eastern United States. There, they built with mud bricks as they didn't have the manpower to build with stone. |
somewhat lightweight and innacurate
| Customer Rating: | The book is well written and it is a readable account of the Conquest of the Mexica empire. Unfortunately, in my opinion the author fails to situate the episode in its temporal and cultural context; it feels more like an adventure story than history. It is also full of innacuracies, which suggest that the author is only superficially familiar with its topic. For example, Levy writes that the ancient city of Tula is located in what is today Mexico City, when in reality is in the state of Hidalgo, some 40 miles away. We are also told that Nahuatl was a Maya language, when in fact it belongs to a different language family altoghether.
In my opinion, Hugh Thomas' account Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico is a far superior piece, succeding in giving a better feel of the clash of two completely different worlds, with the main characters far better placed in their temporal and cultural context. |
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