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Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs | 
 enlarge | Author: Buddy Levy
Publisher: Bantam
Category: Book
List Price: $27.50
Buy Used: $15.44
You Save: $12.06 (44%)
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Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 18409
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 448
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.8 x 1.1
ISBN: 055380538X
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.02
EAN: 9780553805383
ASIN: 055380538X
Publication Date: June 24, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: recycled library book that was made available for resale through a book leasing program,this book may have library stickers and/or card holder.
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Product Description
In an astonishing work of scholarship that reads like an adventure thriller, historian Buddy Levy records the last days of the Aztec empire and the two men at the center of an epic clash of cultures.
“I and my companions suffer from a disease of the heart which can be cured only with gold.” —Hernan Cortes
It was a moment unique in human history, the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. Only one would survive the encounter. In 1519, Hernan Cortes arrived on the shores of Mexico with a roughshod crew of adventurers and the intent to expand the Spanish empire. Along the way, this brash and roguish conquistador schemed to convert the native inhabitants to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in his intentions is one of the most remarkable—and tragic—aspects of this unforgettable story of conquest.
In Tenochtitlan, the famed City of Dreams, Cortes met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, ruler of fifteen million people, and commander of the most powerful military machine in the Americas. Yet in less than two years, Cortes defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astonishing military campaigns ever waged. Sometimes outnumbered in battle thousands-to-one, Cortes repeatedly beat seemingly impossible odds. Buddy Levy meticulously researches the mix of cunning, courage, brutality, superstition, and finally disease that enabled Cortes and his men to survive.
Conquistador is the story of a lost kingdom—a complex and sophisticated civilization where floating gardens, immense wealth, and reverence for art stood side by side with bloodstained temples and gruesome rites of human sacrifice. It’s the story of Montezuma—proud, spiritual, enigmatic, and doomed to misunderstand the stranger he thought a god. Epic in scope, as entertaining as it is enlightening, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
 Diseases of the heart July 11, 2008
Kerry Walters (Lewisburg, PA USA)
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
In a letter quoted by Buddy Levy in his magnificent Conquistador, Hernan Cortes confesses that he and his men suffer from a particular "disease of the heart": a lust for gold and power. The tale of the unhappy outcome of that disease, the destruction of one of the New World's mightiest empires in an astoundingly short time by an astoundingly small handful of adventurers, is the most apparent storyline in Conquistador. Levy tells it with eloquence and accuracy.
But there's another storyline in the book that I find just as fascinating. The disease of the heart which afflicted Cortes and his men also troubled Montezuma, for the Aztec Empire, despite its achievements in science and art, was also a bloodthirsty machine that subjugated native peoples, sacrified tens of thousands to pitiless gods, and created caste systems in which the many were ground under the feet of the few. What Levy gives us, then, is a double portrait of two invalids suffering from similar illnesses. One, a European captain with fewer than 500 men, the other a divine emperor with life-or-death power over 15 million people. In the end, both of them died from their diseases, Montezuma and his empire literally, Cortes morally and (despite his sporadic religious zealotry) spiritually. Curiously, neither of them seemed to have quite the necessary stamina to survive their illness.
In telling the story of the clash between these two men, Levy explores the tactics by which Cortes managed to defeat Montezuma: a combination of bluster, good luck, superior technology, alliances with disgruntled indigenous peoples, and hard fighting. His description of La Noche Triste, the night in which Cortes and his men were forced out of the royal city of Tenochtitlan by rallying Aztecs and nearly destroyed, is surpassed only by his account of the 2-month siege that retook and destroyed the city. (Cortes, for example, dug a one-mile canal to launch battle ships in the lake surrounding Tenochtitlan. Over 200,000 Aztecs, including Montezuma, perished in the resulting fight, which Levy describes with the gusto of Homer's account of the fall of Troy.) Afterwards, Cortes built his palace on the ruins of Montezuma's.
The relationship between Montezuma and Cortes has always been a strange one, with both men appearing both attracted and repulsed by the other. Levy suggests that part of the ambivalence may've been because Montezuma, overpowered by the splendor of the invaders, fell victim to the Stockholm Syndrome (a sense of loyalty to one's oppressors). It's a fascinating suggestion.
All in all, a splendid book that combines historical narrative with much insight about how diseases of the heart can bring down both individuals and empires. Something to think about.
Levy offers an amazing epic journey into the minds of legends June 26, 2008
Buggery Fudgehole (chicago, il)
17 out of 22 found this review helpful
I was a huge fan of Levy's first biography of David Crockett, and was eager to read Conquistador. Once again Levy was able to paint an amazing portrait of these historical figures, while illuminating historical events in an entertaining manner. The final siege on Tenochtitlan makes an amazing climax to this epic.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical non-fiction.
definite must read July 21, 2008
Catherine C. Castillo (Jersey City, NJ United States)
3 out of 6 found this review helpful
i couldn't put this book down. the incredible deceit and politics that went on and still continues today. you could really see the humanity in both Cortes and Montezuma. very well-researched. now i want to go to mexico city and dig deep in its streets and sewers to find all that lost gold!!!!
 Interesting August 15, 2008
Mark Glatzer
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I enjoyed most of the book. By the end the battle scenes got somewhat repetitive. But I recommend it if you want to learn about this period.
 Just more of the same lies... October 15, 2008
J. Martinez
2 out of 11 found this review helpful
These "historical" accounts are nothing more than a further rehash of the same old lies told by the Europeans. There was never a "King" in Mexico. The title was "Supreme Speaker" and he could be removed from office. The Mexicans were never conquered, they sent the Spaniards totally defeated from Tenochtitlan. The Spanish were from the filthy, disease ridden, continent of Europe where the plague, smallpox and open sewers were the norm. The Spaniards won because they carried smallpox which the daily bathing Mexicans had no immunity to. The numbers of sacrifices were very greatly exagerated by the Spaniards who wished to rewrite history. If you want to talk about human sacrifice, how many "witches" did the Christians burn, drown, hang or torture to death? That number is in the millions and dwarfs by any comparison, the number of cult sacrifices in Mexico. The "Historians" never tell you that there was a civil war raging in Mexico between the Toltecs and the Aztecs, as the Toltec had banned the practice of human sacrifice. It was in this climate that the Europeans entered the picture with their insatiable greed and arrogance. The Spaniards killed 94% of the Mexican people and this was the greatest holocaust in the history of the world and the second greatest crime of humanity (the attempted extinction of the bison by the Americans was the worst). Mexico had advanced mathematics, including the invention of zero, place number notation and calculus. They had an advanced knowledge of the universe, knew of Pluto, had the most advanced calendar in the world that was only bested recently using a supercomputer. The Europeans gathered all the written texts of the pre-Columbian people and burned it all. How convenient for those who always seek to destroy the truth and re-write history. Mexico also developed three fifths of the world's food crops and developed cotton which was the prime motivation for the industrial revolution in Europe which was financed by the incredible amount of gold and silver stolen from Mexico. Over 50% of the gold in the world today was stolen out of Mexico. At the time of the "conquest" Mexico was the most culturally advanced nation on earth, with aqueducts, fountains, flush toilets, sewage treatment, zoos, floating gardens and the largest pyramids and cities on earth. Even the Spaniards thought that they had walked into a "fairy kingdom". The Spanish lied and the "native accounts" were told before the boards of the Spanish inquistion. The surviving Mexicans knew that any accounts they gave could render them "heretics" or "devil worshippers" who would be tortured and burned. These are the "truthful accounts" cited by the Europeans in their deceitful corruption of history. After nearly being exterminated 500 years ago, the Mexicans are now the sixth largest population in the world, recovering and advancing at an unbelievable rate. In closing, imagine if the only view of European history was the regime of the Nazis and their despicable crimes. Imagine if any knowledge of Mozart, Michelangelo or Newton was ignored and we only spoke about the witch burnings of the Christian inquisitions. That would be equivalent to how these modern authors insist on telling the story of pre-invasion America. Remember, in those days, their were no borders and all the native American people travelled freely. The Toltec trade empire stretched form Central America, north to Canada and to both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. The emblem of Quetzalcoatl has even turned up in the "mound builder" cities of the Eastern United States. There, they built with mud bricks as they didn't have the manpower to build with stone.
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