History of the Conquest of Mexico & History of the Conquest of Peru [Paperback]

William H. Prescott (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 2000

One of America's greatest and most highly regarded historians, William Hickling Prescott set a lofty literary standard for historical writing with his books on Spain's emperors and explorers. Prescott avoided the dry, names-and-dates style of standard histories and instead brought the past alive, telling with drama and vigor the stories of the men who came face to face with the unknown, and the numerous brushes with death they survived as they carved out an empire in the New World. History of the Conquest of Mexico & History of the Conquest of Peru unites in one volume for the first time two of Prescott's best known and most powerful works. The books detail with accuracy and emotional resonance the arrival of Spain's conquerors to Mexico and Peru, and the wars of conquest whose outcomes remain the cause of contention even in the present day. The History of the Conquest of Mexico focuses on Hernan Cortés, a notary from Spain's Extremadura region, arriving at the edge of the Aztec empire with 500 men, determined to spread Christianity and enlarge the domain of Charles V of Spain. Within the space of a few years Cortés found himself fending off rivals from Spain and warring against enraged Aztecs, against whose superior numbers Cortés struggled against the odds to maintain his garrisons. Prescott's biographer Harry Thurston Peck called The History of the Conquest of Mexico "one of the most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary art applied to historical narration." Conquistadors Pizarro and Almagro are the protagonists of The History of the Conquest of Peru. Prescott tells of their brutal overthrow of the Incas, and the wars between the two of them afterward. Another of Prescott's biographers, Donald G. Darnell, called the book, "an immensely readable history." Using a wealth of documentation as raw material, Prescott turned this blend of viewpoints into a heroic and tragic epic of Spain's efforts to dominate Central and South America. The Histories

Editorial Reviews

Review

[History of the Conquest of Mexico] is as much a triumph over the genre as it is a saga of religious imperialism, Hernán Cortés' harsh victory over the Aztec nation. (Neil Baldwin Los Angeles Times Book Review )

[History of the Conquest of Mexico] is as much a triumph over the genre as it is a saga of religious imperialism, Hernán Cortés' harsh victory over the Aztec nation. (Neil Baldwin Los Angeles Times Book Review )

About the Author

William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) ranks with Francis Parkman and Edward Gibbon as one of the greatest historians of the 19th century. Despite eye problems that led to eventual blindness, Prescott wrote many widely praised works of history including The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella and The History of Phillip II.

Product Details

• Paperback: 1328 pages
• Publisher: Cooper Square Press (August 15, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0815410042
• ISBN-13: 978-0815410041
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 2.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #664,208 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars After all these years, as good as its modern rival, January 16, 2001

By 

Peter Gulutzan (not in what Downey calls the "jerkwater" town of Corvallis) - See all my reviews

This review is from: History of the Conquest of Mexico & History of the Conquest of Peru (Paperback)

I concern myself only with the first part only (the Conquest of Mexico), and compare it to its twentieth-century equivalent, Hugh Thomas's THE CONQUEST OF MEXICO. The obvious difference is in language, since Prescott's long clausulae and cadences are, to us moderns, harder to read. (There is an "updated for modern readers" version of Prescott available elsewhere on amazon, which I have not seen.) One might have expected Thomas would have the advantage of modern research, but the sad fact is that we know litle more now than we did 150 years ago -- both Prescott and Thomas had to use the same source material.

Specifically looking at the famous event of July 1 1520, the "Noche Triste", I see that Prescott and Thomas differ (in the following I will put Thomas inside parentheses). Prescott says the Spaniards chose to retreat on the Tlacopan causeway which was different from the one they came on (Thomas calls it the Tacuba causeway and says that it's the one they came in on); Prescott says Cacama the Lord of Texcoco came along (Thomas says Cacama was killed a month earlier); Prescott says Tlaxcalans were distributed throughout the column (Thomas says they were in the centre); Prescott says "several Indian sentinels" saw the Spaniards leaving (Thomas says it was one woman fetching water); and finally Prescott says that Pedro de Alvarado pole-vaulted over a break on the causeway (Thomas says that can't be true). Also Prescott's passage on the Noche Triste is longer than Thomas's, not just because he's more verbose (which he is), but because he includes details that Thomas omits. Now, for the question "which account is true?" I am unqualified to judge two such thorough scholars, but I know that Prescott is right about Cacama, more believable about the sentinels, and less believable about Alvarado's Leap, so I'd call it a tie in that respect. And so, which account was simply more interesting? Prescott.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A solidly researched history of the Spanish conquest, April 18, 2004

By 

JLind555 - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: History of the Conquest of Mexico & History of the Conquest of Peru. (Hardcover)

William Prescott's "History of the Conquest of Mexico" and "History of the Conquest of Peru" are brought together in one volume that provides a solidly researched and detailed account of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. The first volume, describing the Mexican conquest, is the better of the two. In the first chapters, Prescott describes the life and culture of the native Mexican tribes, concentrating on the dominant Aztecs, their religion, customs, achievements in literature, astronomy, agriculture and mechanical arts, and discusses the infighting among the various native princes that set them up for a fall when the Spanish conquistadores landed in the New World. Prescott writes about the efforts of Bartolomé de las Casas to protect the natives from slavery and how this was rejected on the specious grounds that the Indians had to be brought into contact with the Spaniards in order to be converted to Christianity and slavery was the only way to achieve this end. Prescott describes the conquest of the Caribbean islands of Cuba, Santo Domingo and San Juan de Puerto Rico (as it was then known) as a precursor of the conquest of the Mexican mainland, and how some Indians like Montezuma thought the Spaniards were there for their benefit, whereas others, like Xicotencatl, the Tlascalan chief, were suspicious of the Spaniards' motives from the beginning and tried to unite the native tribes against them. The Noche Triste, brought on by the arrogance and cruelty of the Spanish captain Pedro de Alvarado, is described in such detail that the reader is totally caught up in the narrative. One finishes this volume filled with admiration at Prescott as an historian and a writer, and regretting what a great civilization was destroyed out of pure greed and lust for gold.

"The History of the Conquest of Peru" is as well-written and detailed as the first volume, but it seemed a little drier to this reader, possibly because I was already familiar with the history and culture of the Incas from reading the "Comentarios Reales" of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the son of a Spanish father and an Incan princess. Prescott gives several pages to Garcilaso's talents as a historian, which he doesn't think much of; he notes that Garcilaso, writing as a spokesman for his defeated countrymen, painted a picture of Incan civilization that bordered on the panegyric. But Prescott quotes from Garcilaso here and there throughout his own book. Prescott presents the history of the Pizarro brothers' march through Peru, the defeat of the Incas and the death of Atahualpa, all in scrupulously researched detail. The Pizarros comes across as much less sympathetic figures than Cortes; while Cortes was able to appreciate the humanity of the native Mexicans, and tried to rein in some of his more rapacious captains, Alvarado among them, the Pizarro brothers and their captains, notably Carbajal and Almagro, seemed to be trying to outdo each other in cruelty. We end up feeling nothing but disgust for the avarice and ambition of these people, and the devastating effect it had on the native civilizations that were unfortunate enough to be in their way.

Prescott wrote his history over two hundred years ago and it's still the gold standard of early Latin American historiography. Taken as a whole, the volumes present a panoramic view of the clash of cultures that continues to reverberate to this day throughout Central and South America. Prescott is a vivid narrator and an excellent storyteller; his account grabs the reader early and sweeps you along from the first page to the last. It's a terrific read and a grand tour through two lost civilizations.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Remarkable events told by a remarkable author, May 28, 2002

By 

J. P. Pascoe (South Burlington, VT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: History of the Conquest of Mexico & History of the Conquest of Peru (Paperback)

I'm not a historian. I just like to read history and historical fiction. I first discovered William Prescott's Conquest of Peru in the back of a used bookstore. My kids are from Peru so I decided I should check it out. The first section was about the Inca civilization; their society, customs, politics, and more. It was certainly interesting and readable, but a bit dry. Once the narrative turned to Pizzaro and his band of adventurers, however, I was hooked. They don't call Prescott a romantic historian for nothing. He blends detailed accounts of absolutely outrageous courage, hardship, audacity, greed, ignorance, politics, faith, slaughter, naiveté, and more with vivid insights into the lives, characters and motives of the people involved. The story reads like excellent historical fiction, and yet it's meticulously researched fact.

Prescott's Conquest of Mexico is every bit as good as Conquest of Peru. The book starts with a section on the Aztec civilization, then turns to Cortez and his men. These adventurers behaved as though they were invincible, they believed their faith in God made them so, and one almost comes to believe that they were as they beat unimaginable odds over and over and over again. I was on the edge of my seat through all three volumes.

No offense to Lewis & Clark (or Stephen Ambrose), but Prescott's Conquest of Mexico and Conquest of Peru make Undaunted Courage sound like a family picnic. Remarkable events told by a remarkable author. It's no wonder these books are still popular more than one and a half centuries after they were written.