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A sweeping history of the campaigns and conquests that propelled a small European kingdom to become one of the greatest empires in world
Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus's first landing in the Caribbean, Spain conquered the two most formidable civilizations of the Americans: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. The explorers and soldiers that took part in these expeditions helped to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. In The Conquistadors, Fernando Cervantes helps us understand how this came to be.
Using primary sources including diaries, letters, chronicles, and polemical treatises, Cervantes reframes the story of the Spanish conquest of the New World by focusing on understanding the conquistadors on their own terms, against the late medieval world out of which they emerged. He turns his lens on the political situation in Europe-particularly the ascent of the Habsburgs-to explain how the Spanish Empire weakly ruled their new territories. At the heart of the story are the conquistadors themselves, as well as their supporters and detractors, whose epic ambitions and moral contradictions defined an era.
Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus's first landing in the Caribbean, Spain conquered the two most formidable civilizations of the Americans: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. The explorers and soldiers that took part in these expeditions helped to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. In The Conquistadors, Fernando Cervantes helps us understand how this came to be.
Using primary sources including diaries, letters, chronicles, and polemical treatises, Cervantes reframes the story of the Spanish conquest of the New World by focusing on understanding the conquistadors on their own terms, against the late medieval world out of which they emerged. He turns his lens on the political situation in Europe-particularly the ascent of the Habsburgs-to explain how the Spanish Empire weakly ruled their new territories. At the heart of the story are the conquistadors themselves, as well as their supporters and detractors, whose epic ambitions and moral contradictions defined an era.