Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (MODERN WARS IN PERSPECTIVE)

By Ross Hassig

Book Overview

Most historians of the Spanish conquest of Mexico (1518) are necessarily dependent on the first-hand accounts of the Spanish conquistadores themselves. This has created a highly distorted and implausible view of the Conquest as a near-miraculous victory for a handful of Europeans, and for European cultural, spiritual and technological superiority, over a huge empire with hundreds of thousands of soldiers at its command. The truth is more complex. Professor Hassig reintroduces the Indians into their own history, retelling the story from the point of view of the invaded rather than the invaders. He shows that it was crucially the internal disunity of the Indians - their fragmented political and military organization and divided aims - that created the conditions for Aztec defeat.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0582068282
• ISBN13: 9780582068285
• Release Date: January 1994
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Longman Ltd
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

New research for this updated edition.

Ross Hassig's MEXICO AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST appears in its second updated edition to cover the role indigenous peoples played in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Primary sources display the experiences of the Indians of Mexico and survey the politics, economics, and social history of both peoples and their interactions, adding new research for this updated edition. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

loss of a culture

Hassig gives a new telling of how Mexico fell to the Spaniards. A tale of courage and brutality. The reader can certainly see bravery in the saga of how a relatively few conquistadors managed to outthink and outfight the Aztec empire. We also see glimpses into the character and resourcefulness of Hernan Cortes. And there is no shirking of the methods by which the Aztecs held together their empire, with the well known customs of human sacrifices. But the book also shows that Cortes and his men could on occasion match the Aztecs for savage behaviour. There is somewhat of a sense of loss in the narrative. That much of the Aztec culture is now irretrievably gone. So different from the European societies of that time.