Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico

This is a fantastic read. There's no way an author could have written this gripping and epic of a story as fiction. It is well written and the pace keeps you moving and wondering what unbelievable events will happen next?The author is obviously so immersed in this era, this geography and these people that he writes as if his reader will be a contemporary. About the only concession that he seemed make was to write it in English. Keep a handy device or computer nearby if you want to really understand the implications of the words you are reading. Prepare to look up the different kinds of ships, measurements, terms, and words using google. And when you get to a map, study it and bookmark it because you will come back to it dozens and dozens of times. He discusses events in Mexico as if it his own back yard and you simply better keep up with his pace or he'll leave you behind. This is the kind of book you read slowly and digest; you emerge from your transfixion, and your coffee cup is cold and still full of coffee. Pace yourself; you simply cannot devour it.Imagine my delight to be reading it in 2019 and to see a date that was exactly 500 years prior. And there's sufficiently voluminous volumes of handwritten documents from half a millennia ago to assemble this brilliant story. And I look up the 500th anniversary and see that the President of Mexico is posturing unhappiness toward Spain for behaviors in the half a millennia ago, using the context of the present.This book is loaded with context. Every line of text is safely in context. Where the author is unsure, he gives you all the facts from all the sources and speculates and lets you take your own conclusion. He does not lecture; rather he tells a story. He is not a teacher, so google is your friend.So if you have ten quintals 'only' of gunpowder for your three large iron guns and fifteen small ones, that is apparently not much gunpowder. A quintal is about 100 lb. And small guns may use a poundish of gunpowder, so you have 50 shots for each of your 15 small guns, and some left over for 30 shots of your big guns. That would be for a multi-day battle with 100,000 on each side. See what I mean?

For any important historic event, I try to locate and read the premier book covering the topic. My research on books surrounding the conquest of Mexico pointed me to one book: "Conquest: Montezuma, Cortes, and the Fall of Old Mexico" by Hugh Thomas.* If human history was an HBO television show, the fall of the Aztecs would undoubtedly be the season finale of the Middle Ages (Columbus discovering and colonizing Hispaniola would be the penultimate episode). Not only did the flow of gold, assets, and resources turn Spain into a superpower but it set the standard that would be used by European conquistadors invading native lands for centuries (shock and awe, numerical disadvantage and technological advantage, a smattering of biological warfare). Obviously once the New World was found the flow of Europeans, with their military advantage, biological defenses, and the overcrowding in Europe, were sure to conquer the whole Western Hemisphere, but Cortes did it so well and so dramatically that it must have given all would be conquistadors a profound sense of pride and possibility.Hugh Thomas, dealing with a huge subject, tells the story efficiently and draws fantastic portraits of Mexica (what the Aztecs called themselves) before the arrival, Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, and the war and smallpox epidemic that led to the fall of the Mexica. Using a variety of first hand accounts, including previously never before analyzed Spanish court documents from the 1520's, Thomas forms an elaborate picture of our main cast of characters: Hernan Cortes (the profoundly religious and profoundly violent Spanish leader whose self confidence bordered on insanity), Montezuma (the Mexica emperor and military man in his 50's who wallowed in the belief that the Spanish were the sign of the apocalypse, and lost his ability for strong rule immediately), Pedro Alvarado (the astonishingly cruel Spanish general who was the violent fire to Cortes' implacable coolness. In almost all of the most horrific collisions of the war, Alvarado was in charge or right there whispering "Let's attack them first" in Cortes' ear). On top of this you find engaging descriptions of the Spanish lieutenants, the men who were leading the troops into battle, the massacres by the Spanish and the strange sacrifice rituals of the Mexica.The Spanish Invasion was interesting for a a multitude of reasons, but I will mention a few that I find particularly intriguing. This has to be one of the last invasions where the generals were in the thick of all the battles. Thomas does a great job of piecing together accounts of what actually happened in these battles, to the point where you know that Cortes would lead charges on his horse, or that Cristobal de Olea saved his life on two different occasions, or that the one Spanish woman was so skilled with a sword they call her Mother of God. The Mexica Empire was quite divisive at the time; they had put down surrounding city-states, turned them into vassals, and demanded steep tributes. Cortes himself was so thrilled on finding the situation that he quoted St Mark: "Every kingdom divided against itself will be brought to desolation." The fear factor for the Spanish conquistadors must have been off the charts - they knew (and in some instances watched) that captured Spaniards would be brought to the tops of the Mexica temples and sacrificed - their heads removed and their innards would be eaten. This contributed greatly to one of the more inexplicable justifications in the history of warfare: "We invaded their land, and now that we are here, we need to defend ourselves and kill them all. Also, they have to worship Jesus Christ and knock of this whole eating people nonsense." The cannibalism, the famous "skull rack" of Tenochtitlan which contained anywhere between a few thousand to 200,000 human skulls, their general war like nature, and the beauty and sophistication of their arts and city made the Mexica a complicated and fascinating people.For a dense and convoluted scenario, Thomas aptly describes the timeline of the war: the Spanish alliance with Tlaxaca, the brazenness to capture the Montezuma and keep him hostage, the massacre by Alvarado of thousands of Mexica nobles which led to the Noche Triste - when several hundred Spaniards died fleeing from Tenochtitlan in the middle of the night - and the eventual decimation of the Mexica people once smallpox arrived. I wonder if Cortes went to bed every night thanking not God but Francisco de Eguia, who apparently was Patient 0 for smallpox in New Spain. Most intriguing to me was that in Mexica warfare great emphasis was placed on wounding your opponent and taking him prisoner; Jaguar Warriors, the highest caste of warrior, were soldiers who had captured 20 enemies. So the Mexica were continually trying to ineffectually slice and wound the Spaniards, while the Spaniards were of course stabbing with steel swords. The Spaniards keep remarking how easy it is to kill them, basically.I have gotten distracted and talked less about the book and more about the actually conquest. I think this is because Thomas has done such a remarkable job painting this portrait of the invasion that I feel like I know it backwards and forwards. I can talk about the Mexica fighting style, or the tactics of Cortes in the Siege of Tenochtitlan, or the Mexica trap they sprung on the Spaniards in late June 1522. The footnotes, in which he strays from the narrative but frequently elaborates on one specific battle or conversation, are compulsively readable. I'd also like to mention that Thomas absolutely kills it with his chapter titles; he pulls phrases from first hand accounts of the Invasion. Some examples: The blood of the chieftains ran like water, They were all lords, The Sweetness of death by the obsidian knife. Just tremendous stuff. At any rate, Thomas has written an incredibly in depth yet highly readable account of the Spanish Invasion. It is to his credit that I can ramble so long on the topic.*Curiously, the title on the book cover is different from the title on the Amazon listing, which has reversed the wording and has Cortes before Montezuma. A typo, or perhaps people are more likely to search for Cortes?

This book provides and excellent and engaging history of the conquest of Mexico, from first conquistadores to the fall of the Mexican empire. It is well-balances, focusing its attention of both Spanish and Mexican narratives. I found it engaging throughout and elegantly written.My only complaint would be that it is perhaps overly-detailed for the casual reader. Hugh goes into how many pieces of bread Cortes took on his boat, the names of almost every single person on his voyage and the last details of the every third-cousin of significance in the court. At time, it was just too much and hindered the narrative.

Engagingly written narrative of Castilian conquest of Aztec empire. Paints a vivid picture of what the Aztec empire might have been like. Clearly delves into the intricate workings that enabled, but also worked against, Cortés' efforts.

Un maravilloso libro de un gran historiador. Siendo Hugh Thomas inglés, no tiene ningún sesgo nacionalista, ni español ni mexicano, por lo que ofrece una visión objetiva y un relato realmente fascinante.

Sacrifices rituels, cannibalisme, combats à l'épée, dieux exotiques et cités merveilleuses : tout cela se trouve dans le récit de la chute de Tenochtitlan. Mais c'est aussi toute une époque, une charnière de l'histoire mondiale qui se révèle dans cet ouvrage dense et palpitant.

The best book on the conquest of Mexico by Cortes that I have read. Highly recommended.

Glorious detail . Well written. Engaging.