History of the Conquest of Mexico

Prescott's book is a must to read for everyone interested in the history of Mexico. The account of the conquest is very detailed,obviously product of an extensive research and yet extremely readable. Among the admirable qualities of Prescott as a historical narrator is his attempt at staying objective. He uses previous accounts of the events in question but always keeps in mind that history is written by the victors. He tries to side neither with the conquerors nor with the Aztec, givig credit to the latter for their valor and yet underlining the inevitability of their downfall. Prescott's book is a great history, yet reads as easy as fiction. I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in Mexico!

Wow. I studied History and Literature at Harvard... and they never introduced me to this book! Shame on Harvard. Prescott is a true fusion of history and literature. Built on deep reading and comprehensive research of original sources and shot through with critical insights blended with fairness, Prescott's work is so different from much modern history (which is the manipulation of facts to satisfy politcal agendas). Gosh, I know Prescott is disavowed/not read because of the discrimination against dead white males. But he's just flat-out better than the historian practitioners of today.

William H. Prescott was nearly blind for most of his life and never visited Mexico. Nevertheless, his work contains vivid, almost cinematic, descriptions of landscapes, cities and battles. It is dramatic and entertaining in the manner of great imaginative literature. Surely there has never been a story like that of Cortes and Montezuma and the destruction of the Aztec empire. Here is the collision of late medieval Europe with a civilization closely resembling that of the ancient Egyptians. This story of one race subjugating another should put the reader in mind of the recent conquest of Iraq. Nothing fundamental has changed in the past five hundred years, except that we have no Prescott to tell the tale.

This book is one of the greatest works of world literature, but it can be a deeply disturbing read. By turns, the heart races in outrage and sinks in sorrow at the retelling of the events surrounding Cortes's conquest of the Aztec Empire from 1519 to 1521. There has seldom been an event in history with greater drama, greater conflict, greater peril, and greater moral consequence. Though the conquest is not a turning point in world history, its events can help us fathom many of the most pressing and profound moral and political issues we face down to this day. Prescott tells the story of the conquest superbly, with depth, precision, elegance, sympathy, drama, and emotional power. There are few prose stylists as fine as William Hickling Prescott in the history of English literature, and this is not known widely enough. Many a swollen six-volume history from centuries past has become the province of scholars; few are the classic histories that still can command the attention of lay readers. This is one of them. Many lay readers and scholars testify that this book has lost none of its savor or substance. Prescott emulated Gibbon, that marvel of magnificence in English prose, but thankfully Prescott's style isn't quite as magnificently glorious as the historian's who laid out the momentous decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Prescott's prose stands a bit lower on the register than Gibbon's heroic grandeur; yet Prescott achieves a depth of perception, elegance, and insight that is matched by few writers in all of English literature. As with Gibbon, Prescott's sentences and paragraphs stand as works of art; they not are to be hurried through for the story only, but pondered with an expectation of almost unbounded discovery. Also like Gibbon, Prescott was a master of the subtle, sly aside and the telling tangent. At the center of Prescott's story is the enthralling conquistador Hernan Cortes, that extraordinarily daring captain of the expedition to conquer the Aztecs; in two years, Cortes led a preposterously small band of Spanish soldiers across the Empire and succeeded, highly improbably, in toppling it. Is this one of the key moments of history? For Central America, certainly, but for world history probably not. Nonetheless, it is one of the most riveting stories of early modern times, and you should know it well. Moreover, our evaluations of the actions and ideas of Cortes and his men can help us understand what it means to be good, to toil as servants of the good, and to create a good society. It is easy to get furious with Cortes's band as we read of them fulfilling their audacious mission of conquest. It is easier still to morally condemn them. It could be that they deserve condemnation. But perhaps the matter deserves a very close look, and Prescott can help us examine and judge their actions better than any historian ever. In my view, there are three crucial events that demand our account: (1) the massacre at Cholula, (2)

In his "History of the Conquest of Mexico" and it's companion volume, the "History of the Conquest of Peru", William Prescott achieves the remarkable feat of portraying the action and adventures of the Spanish cavaliers in a highly readable format for those with little prior knowledge of the Conquests. The subject matter for these books is basically the clash of cultures that occurred between the Old World (in the form of Catholic Spain) and the New (in the form of the Aztecs in Mexico and the Incas in Peru). It is interesting to note that these books were written by in the early 19th century by a partially sighted American author who had never visited the countries but who had access to all available historical documents. The style of writing is such that the reader is never overwhelmed by detail and is continually impressed by the heroic feats of the Spanish and at the same time shocked by their cruelty to the indigenous poeples. In the "History of the Conquest of Mexico", Prescott provides an excellent acount of the origin and nature of Mexican civilization at the time of the conquest, describing how the Aztecs dominated the many races of Mexico with savage brutality, indulging in regular human sacrifices. He then goes on to describe the key player in this adventure, Hernando Cortes, and how he and a small party of cavaliers overcame overwhelming odds to defeat the armies of the Aztecs. While it is impossible not to admire the genius of Cortes, the reader is left in no doubt that the Spaniards were motivated by the promise of Aztec gold and not by the desire to "spread the word of God to the heathen". However, Prescott excuses the means by which Cortes overthrew the Aztec empire as it put an end to the Aztec practice of human sacrifice. In the second book, "History of the Conquest of Peru", Prescott finds no excuse for the manner in which Pizarro and Almagro conquered the relatively peaceful empire of the Incas. As with the first book, an interesting description of the Inca way of life precedes the action. While equally enthralling as the conquest of Mexico, Pizzaro accomplished the overthrow of the Incas by brute force, without the finesse of Cortes. The second half of this book deals with the remarkable events which followed the conquest; the two civil wars and their resolution by Pedro de la Gasca on behalf of the Spanish crown. It is difficult to find fault with Prescott's scientific approach to his writings; all of the events are backed up by references to documents written at the time of, or shortly after the conquests and these are given as valuable footnotes on each page. In addition, at the end of some of the chapters, Prescott writes short essays about his sources, describing which are trustworthy and which are prejudiced. If there were to be a fault with Prescott's approach, then it would his sympathy with the Catholic church during the years of the Conquest and his excusing of the Spanish at