Conquistador: The Epic Clash Between Hernan Cortes and Montezuma that Led to the Fall of the Aztec Empire

John Turner: As words fail me, I guess you’ll have to read the book to fully appreciate that above extraordinary claim of mine.

Australia on Nov 18, 2023

Denis Mortenson: I have read the Diary of Cortez, and the Diary of Bernal Diaz. These first person narratives of the conquest of the Aztecs and Mexico is gripping. I wish Hollywood would make an epic movie about it. It's gruesome, graphic, and mystifying. And of course, it is a tragedy for the great civilization of Mesoamerica. Most of the destruction of the Mexican and Native American indigenous peoples was due to disease. Millions of indigenous peoples died from smallpox. It wasn't Cortez's intent to destroy the Aztecs. I honestly think he wanted Montezuma to surrender. Now, was that the right attitude? No. The tragedy is that in their zeal to destroy the devilish religion of the Aztecs, most of the invaluable codex (books) were burned. This is also true of the Spaniards conquest of the Mayans of the Yucatan Peninsula. Did the Aztecs and Mayans practice a blood thirsty religion? Absolutely! They believed if blood was not shed then the universe would end. Crazy stuff. The interesting aspect of this conquest of Mexico is that a princess who was sold into slavery, Malinche, (or Marina), was the key to communicating with the Aztecs and Mayans. This reminds me of Pocahontas saving John Smith....

United States on Oct 04, 2023

Amazon Customer: This was a wonderfully written book. An easy read that captured my attention from to back.

Canada on Aug 03, 2023

JMorgan: I was familiar with the broad outlines of the story of the conquest of Mexico but Levy really dissects the tale and, though he indulges in occasional bits of academic political correctness (he's a professor at Washington State), he doesn't wallow in it. Written in 2008, it appeared too early to be really "woke." He does tend to be harder on Cortez and the Spanish than on Montezuma and the Aztecs in terms of their motives and behavior but the book, on the whole, seems a fair portrayal.

Levy at one point refers to all the tribes of MesoAmerica as "brothers" though I doubt that the 150,000+ Indians who joined Cortez to fight against the Aztecs would agree with that. As brutal as the Spanish could be at times, the Aztecs were mass murderers on an unimaginable scale (well, until the Nazis and Soviet Communists came along, anyway). It is really hard to feel any sympathy for them as the story of the destruction of their empire unfolds.

As advanced as they were in areas like architecture and civil engineering, they were still stone-age primitives who never even invented the wheel (except, curiously, for use in childrens' toys) or an alphabet. And, of course, human sacrifice...

United States on Apr 30, 2021

Leandro Santana de Oliveira: Livro de autoria do jornalista americano Buddy Levy, que escreveu os seis obras aventuras históricas de exploradores. Trata-se de um livro de história relatado com as emoções dignas de um narrador de aventuras, como é o caso de Levy. Todo o enredo gira em torno das peripécias do explorador espanhol Hernán Cortés, que empreendeu a conquista de um império (Asteca) com uma força de pouco mais de uma centena de guerreiros espanhóis. Diplomata, político e general, Cortés soube cooptar para a sua causa povos locais, explorando rivalidades adormecidas, ao encontrar o grande imperador Montezuma, utilizou-se de artifícios para controlá-lo politicamente e, uma vez que havia estabelecidos as alianças necessárias, desenvolvidos as táticas e equipamentos necessários, ele apoderou-se da gigante Tenochtitlán, que ocupava parte da área na qual está localizada a atual Cidade do México. A parte mais eletrizante do livro é justamente o cerco final à capital do Império Asteca. Sobre uma ilha, a cidade era cercada de água por todos os lados e o acesso se dava por meio de passarelas fortemente defendidas. Contudo, os navios e armas superiores utilizados pelos espanhóis, bem...

Brazil on Jul 04, 2020

Charles Scott: Buddy Levy has written quite an ambitious historical piece in Conquistador, which was published in 2008. The book chronicles the life and times of Hernan Cortes, who lived in the early 1500's, and was in the prime of his life. As some readers may already be aware, he was an early Spanish explorer who sailed to the New World in search of adventure, fame, and fortune. Although he was initially sponsored by the Governor of Cuba, Diego Velasquez, other powerful businessmen, such as his own wealthy father, and a good number of investors, Cortes generally acted independently on behalf of the greater common good; namely, that of the sovereign of their nation, King Charles V of Spain. In doing so, he had a marked tendency to behave as an ambitious upstart and an adept social climber, who well understood his place in society and in the larger scheme of European politics at the same time; yet, by the same token, he acted on his own recognizance in the capacity of a completely dedicated legal professional and free-lance diplomat. In short, he became a self-appointed self-made man in the capacity of a high-ranking politician, if not a demigod, having proven himself on numerous occasions as a...

United States on Mar 11, 2020

Roger Shine: From the minute i started reading this book, until the very end, I could not stop thinking about these events in our history. The writer keeps you on the edge of your seat with every chapter....I liked this book so much that I reached out to the author to express my thanks and excitement about this amazing story. Very well written and explained in such a manner that it felt like I was watching a movie it was so vivid in his descriptions of the events. I just ordered his other book on the Amazon River and cant wait to get started. Recommend for sure!

Canada on May 06, 2019

Boyd Hone: This review is of Buddy Levy's DAVID CROCKETT. But before I get to it, I'd like to say a few words about two other Levy books, RIVER OF DARKNESS and CONQUISTADOR, both of which are absolutely fabulous. The first tells of Pizarro and Orellana's trip down the Amazon, the second of Cortés invasion of Mexico. What strikes one in both books is the incredible suffering of the Spain invaders: Physical labor, dysentery, malaria, Indian attacks, drowning, continuous combat--they went through nearly every calamity the earth could offer at that time, including having their hair set afire by a volcano, only to return home (the very few that did) to find disrepute and additional wretchedness (Pizarro murdered after all he had gone through, Orellana and Cortés dying of exploration-related illnesses). In fact, they went through a Hell even unimagined by the imaginative Dante. These men were no angels. Pizarro had a group of friendly Indians tortured in order to learn about El Dorado, then he had them thrown to his dogs for food while still alive. The Indians weren't angels either. Entering a village, Cortés came upon the still-steaming bodies of 50 boys, their hearts piled on a platter,...

France on Mar 02, 2013