The Conquest of New Spain (Penguin Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Bernal Diaz Del Castillo
Creator: John M. Cohen
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 13633
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.1 x 1
ISBN: 0140441239
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.02
EAN: 9780140441239
ASIN: 0140441239
Publication Date: August 30, 1963
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Vivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a first-person account of one of the most startling military episodes in history: the overthrow of Montezuma's doomed Aztec Empire by the ruthless Hernan Cortes and his band of adventurers. Bernal Diaz del Castillo, himself a soldier under Cortes, presents a fascinatingly detailed description of the Spanish landing in Mexico in 1520 and their amazement at the city, the exploitation of the natives for gold and other treasures, the expulsion and flight of the Spaniards, their regrouping and eventual capture of the Aztec capital.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
Indy Jones who? October 20, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
You can take all the faux adventure movies cobbled together with computer graphics and franchise action stars, roll them into a wad, and chuck them out the window. This simple book remains one of the most gripping, heart-in-your-mouth adventures ever written. It's history, but it's pure fiction.
The historical part is straightforward. A band of marauding Spaniards conquered the New World for the greater glory of money, slaves, the queen, and god, in that order. They fought off superior numbers, disease, incessant war, mutiny, plots, and desperate odds to subdue and enslave an entire continent. They rammed their foreign gods down the throats of the natives on the point of a sword, and by their victory turned Spain into one of the world's greatest powers.
The fiction is more astounding, of course, than the history. Bernal Diaz truly believes, at least in his old age, that murder, rapine, and enslavement were acts of fealty to Christ. He sees the treachery of Cortes as being more than offset by the horrific practices of human sacrifice practiced by the Aztecs. He sees the subjugation of the New World as the very just price of European progress and civilization.
Between the historical reality of Cortes's military victory and the fictional account that justifies the war and its atrocities lies a gripping narrative that will shock and astound you with its simple prose and matter of fact description of battles won, lives lost, and a continent brought under force of Spanish arms. This is both the best historical work I've ever read and one of the finest tales of pure fancy and imagination in Western literature.
More Exciting Than Star Wars & Real Too... June 21, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I purchased this book intending to get an unbiased view of the Spanish exploration of the New World. That is a difficult task given the nature of 20th & 21st Century academia.
This text, an eye witness account of what happened on real explorations, more than satisfies my objective. What's more, it's as exciting as can be... kind of like Star Wars... exploring new worlds, defeating the bad guys and establishing new alliances.
Excellent work.
First person conquest May 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
If I could rate this work greater than five stars, I would. Not that it's the most erudite of tales but simply because it is the truth as Bernal Diaz experienced it. Almost certainly, it isn't one hundred percent accurate for Diaz' experiences are necessarily modified by the years separating his experiences from his writing of it. Nor was he, or any other member of the Cortez' expedition, an anthropologist, ethnographesr, scientist or even a particularly accurate observer. They were simple men--brave men, brutal men, trapped men--bent on plunder.
Still the Bernal Diaz memoirs are as good as it gets regarding the Conquest of Mexico and, as such, is an invaluable account. I find his account so important that I used it as my primary source in researching my novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Conquest of Mexico. I loved it when Diaz remarks towards the end of his account that, even in his old age, he wasn't able to sleep the night through. He "had to get up and look around." It's fascinating to note that basic human nature doesn't really change. Bernal Diaz del Castillo was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder induced by the fearful events of his two year battle in Mexico. Also, I loved it when he commented--also toward the end of his tale--that "although we robbed the Indiains, Cortez robbed his soldiers even more."
Cortez, for all his brillianace, luck and perseveranace, was, at the end, nothing more than a common thief.
Ron Braithwaite
The Greatest Adventure of all Time May 25, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
When I first read the 1800 English translation, I could not put it down. Here are the first lines--a real grabbers! "In the year 1514, I left Castile (Spain) in company with Pedro Arias de Avila, who was then appointed governor of Tierra Firma (east Panama)...but afterwards suspicious that his son-in-law had an intention of revolting, he caused him to be beheaded."
Bernal's description of the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan is amazing: "To many of us it appeared doubtful whether we were asleep of awake; nor is the manner in which I express myself to be wondered at, for it must be considered, that never yet did man see, hear or dream of anything equal to the spectacle which appeared to our eyes on this day."
And how about this magnificent line: "And now, let who can, tell me, where are men in this world to be found, except ourselves, who would have hazarded such an attempt."
And here is the horrific vision the Spaniards beheld when they climbed to the top of the great Aztec temple-pyramid. Remember that nearby, and looming up like a nightmare, was the stupendous "tzompantli," or skull rack. By careful Spanish count, it contained the grinning remains of 136,000 human beings.
"In this place they had a drum of most enormous size, the head of which was made of the skins of large serpents: this instrument when struck resounded with a noise that could be heard to the distance of two leagues, and so doleful that it deserved to be named the music of the infernal regions; and with their horrible sounding horns and trumpets, their great knives for sacrifice, their human victims, and their blood besprinkled altars, I devoted them, and all their wickedness to God's vengeance, and thought that the time would never arrive, that I should escape from this scene of human butchery, horrible smells, and more detestable sights."
The Conquest takes on a different color when seen through the eyes of the Spanish. Yes, they were greedy and cruel, but the scale of human sacrifice practiced by the Aztecs was beyond imagination. It is said that some twenty thousand people were sacrificed for the dedication of the Temple of the Sun. The Aztec priests worked for hours on end cutting out human hearts. They worked until they collapsed from exhaustion.
Bernal's history is also interesting for another entirely different reason. Joseph Smith (born 1805), the Mormon prophet, came of age during the period of English translations of Spanish histories (Bernal's in 1800 in London, and 1803 in the US, and Clevigero's "History of Mexico" in 1806 in Virginia and 1817 in Philadelphia).
Therefore, the golden splendor of the Spanish conquests of Mexico and Peru was fresh on everyone's mind, especially because the Spanish colony of Florida had become an American state (1821).
Thus, any notion that Americans were unaware of the great civilizations of ancient America is without foundation in real history. Ancient civilizations in America were so on the mind of people that in 1816, Solomon Spaulding wrote a history about a white and dark race in ancient America. His novel, "Manuscript Found," had the white race of mound builders destroyed by a darker-skin race.
Read my review of Robert Silverberg's magnificent book, "The Mound Builders of Ancient America: The Archaeology of a Myth." A must-read for anyone interested in the archaeology and myths about ancient America. Click here: Mound Builders
Great Eyewitness account December 28, 2006
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Diaz was one of the soldiers who accompanied Cortez to invade the Aztec Empire. His account is one of the best we have of the whole affair. It is not written with much bias and was written to discount historical myths after the invasion had taken place. It is very analytical at times and his analysis of what happened is given added authority since he was present at the events. If you want to understand what happened this is a great book to read.
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