|
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest | 
 enlarge | Author: Matthew Restall
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $19.99
Buy Used: $5.27
You Save: $14.72 (74%)
New (36) Used (20) from $5.27
Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 147587
Media: Paperback
Pages: 240
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.7
ISBN: 0195176111
Dewey Decimal Number: 980.013072
EAN: 9780195176117
ASIN: 0195176111
Publication Date: October 28, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Here is an intriguing exploration of the ways in which the history of the Spanish Conquest has been misread and passed down to become popular knowledge of these events. The book offers a fresh account of the activities of the best-known conquistadors and explorers, including Columbus, Cortes, and Pizarro.
Using a wide array of sources, historian Matthew Restall highlights seven key myths, uncovering the source of the inaccuracies and exploding the fallacies and misconceptions behind each myth. This vividly written and authoritative book shows, for instance, that native Americans did not take the conquistadors for gods and that small numbers of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. We discover that Columbus was correctly seen in his lifetime--and for decades after--as a briefly fortunate but unexceptional participant in efforts involving many southern Europeans. It was only much later that Columbus was portrayed as a great man who fought against the ignorance of his age to discover the new world. Another popular misconception--that the Conquistadors worked alone--is shattered by the revelation that vast numbers of black and native allies joined them in a conflict that pitted native Americans against each other. This and other factors, not the supposed superiority of the Spaniards, made conquests possible.
The Conquest, Restall shows, was more complex--and more fascinating--than conventional histories have portrayed it. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest offers a richer and more nuanced account of a key event in the history of the Americas.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Restall's Flawed Analysis March 13, 2006
Nina Gifford
23 out of 45 found this review helpful
Restall's conclusions add nothing to what Tzvetan Todorov has already said in The Conquest of America-which Seven Myths gets wrong in its dismissal of Todorov's crucial point about the role of writing in the Conquest. Merely being able to put information down on paper isn't the issue. What Todorov means is much more complex, and is grounded in evidence from anthropology to neuroscience (e.g., Ong, Goody, Havelock, Panksepp). First, with written words fixed in front of you, you can re-read, check for inconsistencies, compare to other accounts to assess accuracy and consider alternatives, even elaborate. You, in fact, practice thinking skills you have little opportunity to develop unless literate. Restall also sees no reason to prefer an alphabetic system over, say, Aztec pictographs that interpreters used to recall memorized speeches embodying the culture. But only with an alphabet can you unambiguously set down every single thing a person can think; and only then can an idea be fully worked out and fully critiqued. Evidence shows that the way you think when you internalize an alphabetic written language is significantly more abstract, analytical, and adaptable than when you rely primarily on speech. Second, as Restall claims, "disease," "native disunity," "Spanish steel," and "the culture of war," are causes of the Aztec defeat, but, as Todorov rightly argues, they are only the immediate causes. Underlying them is the ability to productively command signs (whether words or behaviors)-an ability that hinges on writing. It's because the Spaniards had an extensive body of written knowledge that they had steel. It's because of Cortes' writing-based innovative thinking that he could exploit information about the "native" situation to win allies. It's because of the Aztecs' speech-based tradition-dominated thinking that they didn't see the Spaniards as a dangerous new breed of enemy that needed to be dispatched-long before smallpox arrived with a later expedition-and didn't effectively adapt battle conventions to fight this new, unpredictable enemy. Aztec society, as Todorov emphasizes, was NOT inferior to Spanish society in any absolute way. The Aztecs clearly had a complex and highly successful culture. But, at that moment in history, faced with a new kind of enemy shaped by written language, they did not successfully compete. Restall uncritically dismisses Todorov's argument instead of getting it straight.
 Restall debunks historical myths. September 22, 2003
William Milsten (Jacksonville, FL United States)
16 out of 21 found this review helpful
This book is brilliant. I attended a seminar where we were lucky enough to read Restall's book before it was published. Our mission was to try and debunk at least one of Restall's seven myths. Mission Failure! We found little success. His thesis is tight, his evidence is sound, and is book is great.
Underscoring seven key myths and the misconceptions November 15, 2003
Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA)
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
Seven Myths Of The Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall (Associate Professor of Latin American History, Women's Studies, and Anthropology, and Director of Latin American Studies, Pennsylvania State University) presents an informed and informative survey of the events of war, dominance, and assimilation associated with the Spanish conquest of the New World and which have all too often been misinterpreted or skewed down through the ages. Underscoring seven key myths and the misconceptions and fallacies surrounding them, Seven Myths Of The Spanish Conquest unravels oversimplified and all too commonly held precepts to show the Spanish Conquest as a far more tangled and complex web of events and motives than popular memory or the remnants of high school textbooks convey.
Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest January 17, 2004
5 out of 9 found this review helpful
Iconoclastic, restrained and erudite, this outstanding contribution to historical truth was judged by the Economist to be one of the ten best history books of 2003.
Dimythifing the Conquest February 13, 2007
Mario Garza
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The old saying, "History is written by the Conquerers" is very true. This book present a differnt perspective and debunks some of the old myths that have been perpetuated for years.
|
|
|
|
| |
