The Discovery And Conquest Of Mexico [Paperback]

Bernal Diaz Del Castillo (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 1996

Bernal Díaz del Castillo(1495–1584) served under Cortés through the entire Mexican campaign, and his narrative, one of only four extant firsthand accounts, is both an invaluable hirstorical document and a spectacular epic. He was with Cortés when the latter sank the ships, thus committing the small band of conquistadors irrevocably to the Conquest; he was privy to the counsels of the leaders and was at hand when Montezuma was made a prisoner in his own palace. Bernal Díaz fought in over a hundred battles and skirmishes against an enemy who made living sacrifices of their prisoners. These things he saw and recorded in a bold blunt voice whose immediacy, in Maudslay’s classic translation, reaches across the centuries to invite readers to witness for themselves the horrors and wonders of the initial, apocalyptic clash between two great civilizations.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Spanish

About the Author

Bernal Diaz del Castillo fought in over one hundred battles against Mexico. His account of the conquest is one of only four firsthand accounts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; Unabridged Republication of First Editio edition (March 21, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306806975
• ISBN-13: 978-0306806971
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #333,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On the spot reportage from 16th century conquistador, February 22, 2000

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Discovery And Conquest Of Mexico (Paperback)

Several decades ago, as a college sophomore, I was assigned to read Bernal Díaz' work as part of a Latin American history course. The title did not give me much hope. I imagined having to force myself to sit at a desk night after night in order to finish the book. To my great surprise, once I began to read this incredible eye-witness account, I could not put it down. Still, some 38 years later, Bernal Díaz' story, as one of the soldiers who accompanied Cortés, remains forever as one of the best books I have ever read on any subject.

Vivid, eye-witness description of the whole story of the Conquest of Mexico in 1519 will rivet you to the pages, if you have even the slightest sense of history or desire to imagine strange events in faroff places. Here is the tale of how the Spanish soldiers, led by Cortés, despite tremendous odds, toppled an ancient civilization, destroying it utterly, and began a new society that would eventually become modern Mexico. Where else are you going to read words like these, describing the Spaniards' first arrival in Tenochtitlan, which would become Mexico City ? "When we saw so many cities and villages built both in the water and on dry land, and this straight, level causeway, we couldn't restrain our admiration. It was like the enchantments told about in the book of Amadis, because of the high towers, temples, and other buildings, all of masonry, which rose from the water. Some of our soldiers asked if what we saw was not a dream." Alliances, intrigues, battles, retributions, strange gods and the clash of utterly different cultures fill this amazing book. If you have any fondness for history, if you have any curiosity about vanished civilizations, if you would like to ponder about Fate with more substance than usual (!), then Bernal Díaz is your man. Do not pass this book by.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bernal in the eyes of Cardoza....., April 15, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Mexico City) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Discovery And Conquest Of Mexico (Paperback)

Let me share with you one of the most beautiful reveiws of Bernal's epic, writen by the great Guatemalan writer and poet Luis Cardoza y Aragón (from his book "Guatemala: The Lines of Her Palm", translated into English by Michelle Suderman): I started leafing through The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico at my student's desk, at night by lamplight. I skimmed summaries, the odd page, then began my reading in an orderly fashion. Tirelessly, I penetrated further and further into the enchanted forest, mesmerized by the story and by this encounter with my warrior culture, with the conquest. I was entering a distant and fascinating world. I witnessed and experienced the legendary campaign. I saw and heard it. I smelled its odor of iron, gunpowder and tired bodies. I was awed by the descriptions of Tenochtitlan, the markets and Moctezuma's court. The blood looked fresh on the steps of the pyramids. As Humboldt points out, the exhilaration of a newly discovered world is better transmitted by chroniclers than by poets. My first contact with this work was positively prodigious. Exhaustion came after reading for many hours without being able to stop. Captivated by descriptions and memories, I kept going, reading a little more, just a little more. I finally left off when the light of the new day began singing in my window. This is the most comprehensive work on the conquest of America, though it speaks only of New Spain. It contains a wealth of information, and details of all orders, that we do not find in posterior writings on related events-not even adding them together. It was written in Antigua Guatemala, where Díaz del Castillo took up residence in 1545 at the age of forty-nine, and where he died in 1584 after having lived there for about thirty-nine years. He was an old man when he wrote his Discovery and Conquest, nearly half a century after the siege of Mexico Tenochtitlan and the conquest of Guatemala. Bernal Díaz del Castillo's chronicle is the most important and engaging of all, the most truthful and comprehensive account of the conquest of America. He wrote it not only in his quest for truth, to refute the chronicles of Cortés's chaplain, Gómara, and his followers, but out of a need to relive the conquest, out of the same hunger that engendered Don Quixote in Cervantes. Old wounds were opened as he wrote: he himself confesses that he slept with his arms loaded, and that in his old age, he slept fully dressed, accustomed to the exhausting days he spent in Mexico. He was twice conqueror, but the true conquest was the one he carried out seated at his desk, still wearing armor, but no longer wielding the saber.

There are very close ties between this work and the author's life. There was nothing else he could have written. His heart was spilling over with it. Chroniclers would write of the Peru campaigns, campaigns against Turkey, Flanders or Italy, of strangers fighting strangers. Díaz del Castillo wrote about his life and about the land where he placed it at risk countless times. That is what makes his work unique, superior to the writings of historians for the perfect spontaneity of his testimony. He is the unknown soldier, the sweating troops bearing their arms and spoils, walking alongside the chief's mount; through him, they were given a voice, immorality. Pen in hand, he became the great adventurer, with the same fury as when he wielded his sword, with the faith that made his companions envision St James slaughtering Indians in the name of the Lord. He left us the conquest, fresh and bloody, gasping for all eternity.

22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stranger Than Fiction., January 9, 2001

By 

Christopher B. Jonnes "author of BIG ICE and... (Stillwater, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Discovery And Conquest Of Mexico (Paperback)

This story might have been rejected as too far-fetched if it were offered as fiction, but it is history. The fact is that Bernal Diaz was an eyewitness to the entire Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, led by Hernan Cortes. The tale he so eloquently lays out for us in these pages ranks with the most interesting historical epics of all time.

Consider that when the Spanish arrived at the Mexican Gulf Coast in their galleons, the Aztecs had never seen ships, horses, steel swords, or even white men. In another bizarre twist, red-headed Cortes matched the description of a great Aztec god whose arrival signaled the end of their civilization. When word of this omen reached the ears of the great Aztec leader Montezuma in Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), he wept in panic. This arrival is comparable to a huge space ship landing on the White House lawn, and having an army of ray-gun-wielding aliens emerge to conquer us.

As Diaz points out, Cortes was quite a leader and driven man. To prevent mutiny once he'd opted to pursue conquest inland, he destroyed his own ships. He then sets out, hopelessly out-numbered, to conquer the Aztecs. In the next year, his tiny army either wins over or defeats all comers--including a second arrival of Spanish intending to destroy him. He makes his way to the incredibly rich and magnificent city of Tenochtitlan, and then the excitement begins.

Over the centuries, Cortes' brutal tactics have come under criticism. Conquest is rarely politically correct. We must remember the time and context, though. Cortes and Spain were spanning the globe in search of gold, but also to convert the masses to Christianity. They believed they were doing God's work, particularly after being introduced to the Aztec's practice of human sacrifice. Diaz does not attempt to justify the motives. He simply tells the tale, and what a tale it is. Most highly recommended. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.