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Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs

Buddy Levy (Goodreads Author)

4.21 · Rating details · 2,588 ratings · 259 reviews

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.” —Hernán Cortés

It was a moment unique in human history, the face-to-face meeting ...more

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Hardcover, 432 pages

Published June 24th 2008 by Bantam

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Mar 07, 2017 Noah Goats rated it really liked it · review of another edition

If you want to know what an alien invasion would be like, don't read science fiction, read this book instead. Just imagine how horrifying and strange it must have been for the Aztecs to have Cortes and his men show up in huge technologically advanced ships from a strange land they had never heard of. Imagine their reaction at seeing these men who looked so different from themselves with their beards, white skin, and shining armor. Imagine their horror as these Spaniards rode terrifying animals t ...more

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May 10, 2012 Lyn Fuchs rated it really liked it

Traveling from Veracruz to Mexico City is not a major journey - unless you do it on foot, wearing full metal armor, offroad without good maps, and with thousands of ferocious warriors trying to kill you. Who would attempt this? Only one guy. Buddy Levy's book Conquistador allows us to march alongside one of history's most insanely-courageous leaders: Hernan Cortes.

The book compels readers eagerly down this deadly road for God, gold and glory. Despite an avalanche of facts, the complexities of we Traveling from Veracruz to Mexico City is not a major journey - unless you do it on foot, wearing full metal armor, offroad without good maps, and with thousands of ferocious warriors trying to kill you. Who would attempt this? Only one guy. Buddy Levy's book Conquistador allows us to march alongside one of history's most insanely-courageous leaders: Hernan Cortes.

The book compels readers eagerly down this deadly road for God, gold and glory. Despite an avalanche of facts, the complexities of weapons, battles, alliances and negotiations are made clear without slowing the riveting drama.

The narrative documents three controversial propositions. 1) Hernan Cortes was a military genius of Napoleonic or Alexanderic magnitude. He pulled off an incredibly-ballsy, nearly-impossible feat, regardless of how we view it ethically.

2) This wasn't a simple confrontation between Europeans and Natives. What Cortez orchestrated was a new-world civil-war, pitting Aztecs against oppressed neighbors, who hated them enough to fight bravely with Cortes as the lesser of two evils.

3) Despite foul hypocrisy and kindergarden theology, Hernan is to the Americas what Constantine is to Europe: a bloody apostle who spread the Word with the help of swords and prophetic visions. (Constantine saw a cross in the sky by which he'd conquer; Montezuma saw a kingdom from across the sea by which he'd be conquered. These two omens helped propel an Asian called Jesus into a global faith.)

If you doubt the long-term religious influence of the cruel Cortes, consider my recent experience. Visiting a remote Chinantec village in Mexico, I commented on what looked like a Day of the Dead altar. Villagers rebuked me insisting "We are Catholics, this is an All Saints' Day altar, and Day of the Dead is pagan necromancy!" Point taken. To say Hernan Cortes was merely a marauder with no spiritual impact is to say you haven't traveled Latin America much. Admire him or hate him, this guy matters, so the gripping Conquistador matters too. ...more

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Oct 11, 2019 Leftbanker rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

For those complaining about the “eurocentrism,” or whatever, of this book and others regarding the conquest of the Incas and the Aztecs, perhaps they weren’t aware that the Native American peoples had no written language. There were no historians among them. Everything we know of the encounter between the Spanish and the Aztecs comes down from Spanish chroniclers. It’s like people want to take modern ideas of political correctness and extrapolate in reverse to come up with some other version of ...more

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Oct 28, 2011 Anna added it

Shelves: audio-book

I really don't know what to think of this book. The author's use of adjectives in praise of Cortes gets tiresome really fast. How many ways can you say he was one tactical, ruthless mother fucker? Not that many, it turns out, since Levy calls him a "brilliant strategist" about a dozen times. Seriously, it ends up reading like the epithets in Greek epics, but instead of "grey-eyed Athena" it's "battle-hardened Spanish soldiers." These repetitions are grating not only for their literary merits, bu I really don't know what to think of this book. The author's use of adjectives in praise of Cortes gets tiresome really fast. How many ways can you say he was one tactical, ruthless mother fucker? Not that many, it turns out, since Levy calls him a "brilliant strategist" about a dozen times. Seriously, it ends up reading like the epithets in Greek epics, but instead of "grey-eyed Athena" it's "battle-hardened Spanish soldiers." These repetitions are grating not only for their literary merits, but also because the space they take up in Levy's prose furthers the myth that only a few hundred conquistadors were able to take Tenochtitlan, a city of 300,000 inhabitants, with only passing mentions here are there of the 40,000 Tlaxcalan warriors who fought as allies with the Spanish, as well as allies from Atlixco, Chalco, Texcoco, and many other indigenous states. To his credit, Levy does mention these strikingly large numbers of indigenous troops, but in contrast to his fawning over Cortes' "strategic cunning", it's easy for the force of these numbers (mentioned almost in passing) not to really sink in.

My biggest issue with this book, however, is not with the author, but with the voice actor who did the narration on the audiobook. Patrick Lawlor has apparently won prizes (or at least nominations) for other audiobooks he has recorded, but I can't see why. In some ways, his stilted, awkwardly formal way of speaking was well matched with the text's numerous technical details. Descriptions of the dimensions of various causeways, a full accounting of the number of mares and harquebuses that the Spanish had in working order at various points during the conquest, a recounted geography of the various causeways connecting Tenochtitlan to the mainland, these are details that are hard to bring to life verbally. My main beef with him was his butchering of the pronunciation of various Spanish and indigenous Mexican names. Aguilar is pronounced Ah-ghee-lar, not Ah-gwi-lar. This is a forgivable error to someone who isn't used to pronouncing Spanish names, but seriously, you're narrating a book about a bunch of Spaniards: learn how to say their names.

The weirdest part about his narration, however, was that when the text quoted Cortes, Lawlor uses this bizarre "Spanish" accent when speaking his words. Think: Señor Wencez, but much more sinister. I ended up looking forward to these parts because of the comic relief they offered.

Despite all the complaints I have about this book, I must say that I listened to the whole thing. Not only that, but I returned it to the library when it was put on hold by someone else, and because I hadn't finished it earlier, I checked it out again. This might say more about how compelling the story of the conquest is, but perhaps some credit should be given to Buddy Levy and the way he tells the story. I found myself turning off my car and thinking, "I wonder what is going to happen in this battle," or "How will Cortes get out of this one?!?" The story pulls you along (except where it stalls with the weight of excessive detail) and made me want to go out and read about six more books on this topic from different perspectives. ...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Jennifer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Wow! Exciting, edge of your seat reading. “Popular” history told narrative style, but supported with extensive research. An “I was there” kind of history, though by the end you’re certainly glad you weren’t. A wonderful book marred only by an occasional carelessness in the prose – facts are sometimes repeated within a page or two of one another, as though one instance was not removed when the other was inserted. But this happens infrequently and doesn’t spoil the pace of the story. As for that s ...more

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Sep 27, 2019 Nikhil Iyengar rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, non-fiction

A rich and comprehensive history of the Spanish conquest of Mexico and the fall of the Aztec empire, bringing to life characters of the likes of Cortes and Montezuma. The accounts from both sides are almost able to present a neutral view of the event and the depictions of battles and Aztec culture are nothing short of spectacular.

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Oct 05, 2011 GD rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

Books like this make me really wonder who is worse in the situations where some more advanced European group comes in and stomps the shit out of some barbaric cannibal child-sacrificing group.

This book was pretty good, it was actually written sort of like a novel, with lots of liberties taken by the writer with adjectives and the feelings of the people involved. But I don't think it's really meant to be an academic history book, more a history book for normal people like me, and the writer's li ...more

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Dec 06, 2010 Mati rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This true story of the conquest of the Aztecs blew my mind. It is so griping, wild, violent, and shattering as to only reflect the scope of empires crashing in who's wake we all still live. Cortes is Both hero and insatiably vicious. ...more

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Dec 16, 2020 Jerome rated it really liked it

A readable, interesting and well-written narrative history of Cortés’s conquest.

Levu does cover Montezuma, but the narrative is mostly from Cortés’s perspective. Levy ably shows how Cortés got by on intelligence, military prowess, and sheer willpower, and how he drove the expedition. Cortés comes off as his own man, while Montezuma comes off as trapped by his trappings: status, advisers, high priests, and gods.The narrative is well-written and engaging, and Levy does a great job bringing the set ...more

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Mar 19, 2021 Barry rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

This book tells the remarkable, and sometimes horrifying, story of Cortés and the conquest of the Aztecs. I was familiar with the general outline of the history, but it always seemed a bit puzzling to me how several hundred Spaniards were able to conquer the dominant empire of the Americas— and their city of Tenochtitlán, the largest city in the world at the time with a population of 250,000. Well, the answer is through cunning and deception, military superiority, and sheer audacity. Mounted cav ...more

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Jul 20, 2019 Kieran rated it it was amazing

Remarkably well told recreation of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. It's thoroughly researched and the characters involved are truly fascinating. This opened a whole new world for me and expanded my imagination so much. I loved it. ...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Urey Patrick rated it really liked it

Shelves: military-general, historical-events, history-european

If you have any interest at all in Aztec culture and the Cortez saga, this is the book to read. The author is a bit too empathetic with the Aztec culture of daily human sacrifices, totemic dismemberment, ritualistic blood-letting and cannibalism. I don't think it all that bad that Cortez ended the incomprehensibly vast killing and the ruthless preying on numerous "lesser" tribes as fodder to feed the ravenous Aztec appetite for human blood and flesh. On the other hand, his descriptions of Aztec ...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Ed Mestre rated it liked it

Addicted to this tale over many years I just had to read one more version. Not nearly as thorough as Hugh Thomas excellent book "Conquest" (also reviewed by me on Goodreads) I enjoyed it nevertheless. At times I found some silly errors (saying the Toltec city of Tula is present day Mexico City & the Latin name for a bison as the Latin name for a mammoth), but for the most part it was pretty well researched & does give Thomas' acknowledgement for the work he did with previously unknown documents. ...more

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Feb 06, 2011 Christine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history-mexico

I read this after watching Michael Wood's Conquistadors. Levy does a good group of capturing the time, and the book is engrossing. Levy doesn't romantize either group, and while he is sympathic to the Aztecs, he does seem to have some admiration for Cortes. In short, Levy tries to be as fair as he can be. He consulted both Spanish and Native sources. The focus is more on the founding of a modern idea than the evils of imperialism though he does present the evils of imperialism.

It also makes me g ...more

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Feb 24, 2019 Tim K rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book was a 4.5. To make it easier on the reader it should have contained more maps to follow the various military campaigns mounted by both sides. The book is a page turner hardly ever a dull moment. It is hard to imagine all the extreme difficulties encountered and overcome throughout the "conquest". Cortes is far from a saint but he probably believed he was saved from his sins by the various "indulgences" purchased from priests and approved by the pope going around at that time......... m ...more

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Apr 05, 2012 Edward Sullivan rated it really liked it

Shelves: adult-nonfiction, central-and-south-america

Vivid, fascinating, and completely engrossing.

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Oct 26, 2017 Shariq Chishti rated it really liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A very well written book about one of the most important chapters of colonial history and world history. Hernan Cortez conquest of Tenochtitlan is unlike any other I have read or heard about. Cortez`s massacre of Cholula and what seemed at first an almost bloodless coup of Tenochtitlan read like historical fiction. But as you flip pages more interesting and bemusing aspects of the conquest come to the fore nothing more than the character of Motecuzoma II. The Aztec emperor Motecuzoma II`s friend ...more

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Mar 25, 2021 Aleks rated it really liked it

Very solid book overall. I would recommend this to fans of historical narratives. It addressed a blind spot for me as I little knowledge about the Aztecs and Cortes.

I must say, I found the author too sympathetic to the Aztecs. He made it seem as if their destruction was some terrible loss. No doubt many innocents died, and while I don't believe in collective punishment, I do think that their way of life needed to go. Their human sacrifice rituals were repugnant and the most morally reprehensible ...more

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Aug 17, 2021 Sebastian Gebski rated it really liked it

Unbelievably story. Amazingly, it all really happened ...

The book is focused solely on the conquest - the author has saved us a presentation of the general geopolitical background, Cortes's efforts to acquire funds, etc. The book is full of interesting details and it's in general fun to read.

What you should know before reaching out for it?
* the author doesn't experiment much with the form - no fictionalized interludes, etc.
* it's not a typical academic, historical book - e.g. the author doesn't ...more

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Nov 24, 2019 Shannon rated it liked it

A decent book but a bit slow at times. The story itself is fascinating but I found my eyelids droop a little too often to give it four stars. A bit more editing and a few more interesting footnotes and this could have been a lot better.

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Jan 31, 2021 Jason Herrington rated it liked it

This is the account of Cortes’ conquest of the Aztecs. Was not as interesting as I’d hoped. Both sides in this battle were terrible. The descriptions of the Aztec empire were impressive though.

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Jan 11, 2021 Jurij Fedorov rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

1 Setting Out for New Spain and the Serendipitous Gift of Language
7,5/10

A rapid start with a lot of names that makes some of the story a bit complicated to understand. But the writing is great and direct and you understand all events. It's also easier to understand once they reach mainland America as you have fewer people to keep track of. Some curious culture clashes and some mean and bloody streaks are seen in both groups. But the Native Americans are so primitive and ruthless that Spaniards t ...more

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Jan 14, 2020 DANIEL LO rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

They should make a movie out of this.

Prior to reading this book I had no knowledge of Hernan Cortes or much about the Aztec empire and how it ended.
This has to be one of the craziest conquest stories of all time. It is epic as anything you’ve read.
The characters, the struggle, the crazy turns and the fact that in many ways it was the first time that such and such happened.
I was absolutely thrilled by it.

Shout out for the author, who did an amazing job putting all together beautifully.

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Oct 28, 2019 Joe Kraus rated it it was ok

Shelves: nonfiction

One of the great mysteries of history has to be why Montezuma capitulated as he did to Hernan Cortes. It’s a pretty easy what-if to contemplate that, if he’d followed what appear to have been his instincts, he’d have either held out longer or he’d have been able to give sufficient resistance to buy his Aztec empire some time. Imagine how history would be different if, given an additional decade, the Aztecs had been able to acquire even a few of the horses and guns the Spaniards used. They might One of the great mysteries of history has to be why Montezuma capitulated as he did to Hernan Cortes. It’s a pretty easy what-if to contemplate that, if he’d followed what appear to have been his instincts, he’d have either held out longer or he’d have been able to give sufficient resistance to buy his Aztec empire some time. Imagine how history would be different if, given an additional decade, the Aztecs had been able to acquire even a few of the horses and guns the Spaniards used. They might never have “won” against the colonizing forces, but they might not have left the vacuum of political power that they did.

Buddy Levy’s history sets out to address that question in part, but it does so by telling the larger narrative of the conquest. To his credit, Levy seems to want to challenge the Spanish-centered narrative that we necessarily know – after all, the victors get to tell the story. The trouble is that there are almost no sources for the Aztec perspective. We get suppositions about what Montezuma and his allies were thinking, but there’s no way Levy or anyone else can really know.

As a result, there’s a vacuum in the narrative as well. Levy’s structure compels him to fill in that mystery, and there are times it feels clumsy. Above all, I have a hard time forgiving him for a throwaway observation that Montezuma may well have fallen prey to what we know today as Stockholm Syndrome in which he came to identify with his captors rather than with the community he’d known his whole life.

Is that possible? Maybe. It feels like a stretch to me, but the real issue is how the sources we do have might indicate that. And Levy isn’t especially forthcoming there.

I always feel compelled to caution that an absence of a sense of the sources may be a result of my listening to this rather than reading it. It may be that Levy has footnotes that, as a reader, I could follow but that are invisible (or inaudible) to a listener.

What emerges, though, is both too much speculation and – in the spaces where we clearly do have documentation – overly detailed accounts of skirmishes and battles. We’ll get the casualty counts of a conflict, complete with the names of each wounded conquistador, and then I’ll realize I’ve lost track of the implications of the battle itself – unless, as always, it was about Cortes’s relentless pursuit of conquest.

There are some powerful questions in play here. Beyond Montezuma’s motivation, we have the challenge of weighing the morality of the Aztecs. They deserve our sympathy for being exterminated, but they were clearly bloodthirsty themselves. Levy has a moment where he imagines Cortes bewildered by the fact that a religious ceremony without a human sacrifice was as alien to the Aztecs as a Catholic Mass without the eucharist. That’s a striking way to put it, but I like to think that any feeling human would have been horrified at the sight of those human sacrifices. That is, the genocide that followed is one of the great crimes of human history, but the violence and terror that sustained the Aztec empire seem criminal to me as well.

The ultimate challenge, though, is to balance the details we do have with the larger narrative in play. Near the end, Levy declares that the battle for Tenochtitlan was the costliest battle – in terms of life – in world history. That’s a striking claim, but it’s one that doesn’t seem supported by the context of the larger story.

There’s a lot to learn here – I’m glad to revisit the story and get the level of detail we do – but I think this falls short of the ambition it holds for itself.
...more

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Oct 01, 2020 Jess rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020

The problem with pop narrative history that divorces itself from the duty to history on the grounds that it’s ‘just telling the story’ etc is that it’s impossible to do that. Describing the internal state of Cortés’ mind and ascribing him motivations, feelings etc, yet completely failing to pass any kind of open value judgement, is a very firm decision on what kind of history is being told. It’s untenable because the very decision to explicitly give Cortés a character on which to hang the story The problem with pop narrative history that divorces itself from the duty to history on the grounds that it’s ‘just telling the story’ etc is that it’s impossible to do that. Describing the internal state of Cortés’ mind and ascribing him motivations, feelings etc, yet completely failing to pass any kind of open value judgement, is a very firm decision on what kind of history is being told. It’s untenable because the very decision to explicitly give Cortés a character on which to hang the story IS making a value judgment. For instance, framing the story of Cortés taking the enslaved women Malinche for a ‘mistress’, the author describes her as savvy and ‘intelligence burning in her eyes’, creating the idea that she had any agency at all over her life as a twice enslaved young woman, and describes Cortés as ‘charmed’, making the whole thing seem to have a kind of affection, balance, and reciprocity. Even the use of the term mistress is a loaded word implying a consensual relationship. She was enslaved, babe. Weirdly childish word-use crops up constantly in a way that diminishes violence. The enslavement and trade of people for sexual exploitation is referred to every time as ‘giving’, as in Cortés is ‘given’ women by a chief and then ‘gives’ these women to his men. Spaniards ‘squelch(ed) the opposition’ rather than, you know, ‘killed the people fighting against the occupation of their land’. The descriptors an author chooses to use necessarily have value and frame the whole thing, so to tell the story like this without speaking on the obvious truth that eg Malinche and the other enslaved women had no agency and we can’t know what they were like as people because they are victims utterly without voice in the historical record is extremely uncomfortable and shitty.

The whole book is childish and shallow like this, with very occasional analysis appearing in footnotes only. It takes until page 118 (!) for the ‘hypocrisy of Cortés’s response to Aztec ritual practices’ to be brought up in a 5 line footnote that ends ‘his reaction simply reinforces the historical truth that one people’s passion is another’s perversity’. That’s basically saying ‘yeah he yucked their yums but don’t we all’. What a shallow and useless waste of printing ink. Could the author not be bothered to consider how the unique influence of contemporary Christianity, especially in Spain coming off the back of the height of the Inquisition and Crusader rhetoric PLUS only ~25 years after the completion of the Reconquista, combined to produce a level of ‘righteous’ violence that was completely beyond the pale? How is it not a vital part of the entire story that the uniquely violent pseudo-religious attitude of the Spanish that had as much to do with the material conditions of the time as tribalism and religious extremism allowed for this ‘hypocrisy’ to be ignored and not even understood? It’s wildly irresponsible to reduce the situation to one of moral relativism and the maxim that difference produces violence. The conditions that led to the conquistadors were so particular, and for the author to kind of shrug as though it is completely inevitable that ‘you say tomato I say tomato’ leads to genocide every time is an astoundingly myopic show of euro-centric idiocy. ...more

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Mar 08, 2020 Dan rated it really liked it

My biggest takeaway from this book is that I wish I could have seen Tenochtitlan in its heyday, before it was conquered and before Lake Texcoco was drained. Levy does an amazing job of describing the magnificence of the Aztec capital that it almost seems like a made up world, but he uses so many great quotes and sources that you know it was totally real. Maybe I wasn't paying attention in school, but I feel like the gist of the destruction of the Aztecs that I learned previously was that Cortes My biggest takeaway from this book is that I wish I could have seen Tenochtitlan in its heyday, before it was conquered and before Lake Texcoco was drained. Levy does an amazing job of describing the magnificence of the Aztec capital that it almost seems like a made up world, but he uses so many great quotes and sources that you know it was totally real. Maybe I wasn't paying attention in school, but I feel like the gist of the destruction of the Aztecs that I learned previously was that Cortes steamrolled the helpless Aztecs with smallpox and 500 conquistadors and that was that. What really happened was obviously more complicated than that, including Cortes having 200,000 native soldiers on his side, the construction of 13 warships that were transported 50 miles over the mountains to be reassembled on a lake the size of the Great Salt Lake, and a 3 month siege on the lake city.

The most surprising part about this whole episode of history that I had never heard - which Levy makes a main point of his book - is that the whole conquest would never have been possible without the aid of innumerable native allies. The Aztecs had angered so many neighboring cities and towns by demanding enormous tributes and offering their citizens as sacrifices to the gods that as soon as someone showed up (Cortes) who wanted to take the Aztecs down they were more than happy to sign up. I've become accustomed to the "greedy Europeans show up and kick the crap out of the peaceful natives and steal all their stuff" story told always about the Americas, but I've always had my doubts that we're being told the entire truth. That isn't to say that Cortes and other European conquerors didn't commit their fair share of atrocities, because they definitely did. It was interesting to read about Cortes because it seemed that most often he wanted to avoid violent conflict, but then seemingly out of the blue he ordered some quite shocking acts of cruelty.

Another part of the history highlighted in the book was the sacrifices offered by the Aztecs to their gods. Before the arrival of the Spaniards warfare among towns and cities was an endless cycle for the main purpose of providing fresh sacrificial victims. When a city was running low on potential sacrifices they would attack a nearby city to take their people for the sacrifices. There are various accounts shared by Levy that shows how disgusted the Spanish were by these sacrifices. Although we have to be careful reading such accounts there is a general agreement among scholars that at least 20,000 men, women, and children were sacrificed each year by the Aztecs.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS
- Montezuma as a puppet-king until his people revolted against him
- Various attempts by other Spaniards to thwart Cortes' leadership
- The construction and transport of the 13 brigantines over 50 miles of mountain terrain
- Battles on the causeways
- Cortes scuttling his fleet so no one could escape

QUOTES

- "Cortés dispatched scouts to inspect the main temple, where they found a scene that shocked them: freshly sacriﬁced young boys, blood still pooling from their viscera. The walls of the altar were bespattered with blood, and the victims’ hearts were set out on plates. The scouts saw large, square sacriﬁcial stones and sharp obsidian blades glistening with blood. They saw dismembered torsos, the arms and legs severed from them cleanly. All this they reported to Cortés, who immediately demanded to see the leader of these people."

- "Cortés and his men were stunned by the range and scope of the palace, including the menagerie areas, which housed savage mountain lions and jaguars (rumored to be fed with the blood and remains of human sacriﬁce victims) as well as lynxes and wolves. There were deadly venomous snakes, rattlers and boa constrictors, and lizards and crocodiles. One house was devoted to birds of prey, with eagles and falcons and hawks in their own cages, and great tropical birds of resplendent plumage, including the highly revered quetzal; its chest feathers were the color of blood, and the long tail feathers were the color of polished jade. They strolled through immense and manicured tree-lined botanical gardens, where learned experts grew aromatic and medicinal herbs and roses the colors of sunrise and sunset."

- "The idol of Huitzilopochtli loomed over the room, his gigantic form seated on a litter. His eyes were of bright stone, and he bore in one hand a gold bow, in the other gold arrows. His face was bespattered with blood, both fresh and dried, and near him stood smaller idols equally frightening, dragons and “other hideous ﬁgures,” including a “fanged serpent.” From his neck hung a chain of gold and silver hearts, symbols of the most important sacriﬁce. Before the idols burned braziers, in which freshly extracted human hearts spat and sizzled. Sickened, Cortés could only look away in horror, casting his eyes against the blood-drenched walls. The smell of the place overwhelmed him. He faced Montezuma and spoke to him as Malinche translated, “I cannot imagine how a prince as great and wise as your majesty can have failed to realize that these idols of yours are not gods but evil things . . . devils.” Montezuma heard these words with a steely-eyed stare but for the moment said nothing. Cortés, deciding the time was right, with brazen audacity suggested that a cross be erected here, as a symbol of the one true God. “Let us divide off a part of this sanctuary . . . as a place where we can put Our Lady, and then you will see, by the fear that your idols have of her, how grievously they have deceived you.” Cortés did not comprehend (nor did he attempt to) the ancient, deeply held importance of ritual sacriﬁce in the Aztec religion, nor the importance of these idols in their worldview, though it was right there in front of him. For Montezuma and his people, the hearts and blood of the victims were not just desired but absolutely necessary. This was neither sport nor entertainment—it was a requirement, needed to live, like air or water, needed for the continuation of the world. Ritual human sacriﬁce was the supreme offering in the Aztec belief system."

- "Cortés and Montezuma spent hours together, with only the interpreters and a few invited guests, Montezuma teaching Cortés how to play the games of totoloqui, (or totoloque), in which they tossed small gold balls, and patolli, a popular dice game something like backgammon that the general populace played with beans and stones and that the nobility played with small gold balls and gemstones; it was also gambled on. Bernal Díaz recalled that Cortés would have Pedro de Alvarado keep score for him; Montezuma often caught Alvarado cheating, adding an extra point or two to Cortés’s score. This amused Montezuma, and the two laughed a great deal about it. They played for jewels, and if Cortés won, he would give the jewels to Montezuma’s nephews and favored counselors in attendance; if Montezuma won, he gave his winnings to the guards. These interactions were all strangely convivial."

- "The gunpowder was crucial. Stores were extremely low, to the point that Cortés had recently dispatched an emergency team under Francisco de Montano (one of the Narváez conscripts) to the summit of Popocatépetl to obtain sulfur for fabricating gunpowder. Five bold Spaniards ascended the great volcano, and after casting lots for the “privilege,” Montano was lowered by rope chain multiple times some four hundred feet into the mouth of the smoldering caldera, until he had harvested enough sulfur to make gunpowder for the crossbows and artillery, an amount that lasted until the end of the siege." ...more

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Jun 30, 2015 Carlos rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history

I found this book a huge missed opportunity. Levy writes this book as an adventure story of the odds-defying conquest by Hernan Cortes of the Aztec people. While I’m sure there are those who think that a history book aimed at a popular audience precludes a more nuanced narrative, I wholly disagree. Levy’s choice of words, either consciously or unconsciously, perpetuate the myths of the inherent superiority of the Europeans to the indigenous people of the Americas.
Time and time again Levy states I found this book a huge missed opportunity. Levy writes this book as an adventure story of the odds-defying conquest by Hernan Cortes of the Aztec people. While I’m sure there are those who think that a history book aimed at a popular audience precludes a more nuanced narrative, I wholly disagree. Levy’s choice of words, either consciously or unconsciously, perpetuate the myths of the inherent superiority of the Europeans to the indigenous people of the Americas.
Time and time again Levy states that “60 Spanish soldiers” withstood the onslaught of “innumerable” Aztecs, only to later state that “several thousand Tlaxcalan [indigenous tribe allied with the Spanish against the Aztecs] warriors” died in the same battle. Not only does this mislead the reader regarding the numerical disadvantage of the Spanish but it further implies that the Spanish soldiers survived what thousands of other indigenous warriors couldn’t rather than what actually happened, the Spanish soldiers survived BECAUSE the thousands of allied warriors took the brunt of the fight. Similarly, and specially highlighting the importance of historical context, Levy constantly portrays the Aztec warriors as “disorganized” against the Spanish and yet never considers recounting how these “disorganized” warriors could have subjugated the rest of the indigenous tribes of what is now Mexico and Guatemala. It is this context that I found the book so disappointing.
I am aware that no amount of historical nuance will change the fact that the Spanish did conquer the Aztecs, but being honest about the advantages of superior military technology, of the numerous disgruntled neighboring tribes willing to aid the Spanish, of the appeasing policy that the Aztecs initially had towards the Spanish and of the devastating effect of the newly introduced contagious diseases in wiping out the native population of the Americas will go a long way in subverting the idea of the inherent inferiority of the conquered peoples. Also let me acknowledge that Levy’s book recognizes all of these details at some point in his narrative but they all seem to fly out the window when he is describing Cortes’ victories and it is only my own suspicion against his narrative that kept those details fresh in my mind.
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Apr 10, 2021 Daniel rated it it was amazing

A fascinating and influential chapter in human history

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Jan 31, 2018 Quinten rated it really liked it

Never having heard from this author in my life, I much doubted if his books would be any good. This because there weren't a lot of ratings and reviews about Buddy Levy's writings. When I finally decided to pick up Conquistador, all doubt was removed from mind.
Conquistador tells the story of Hernán Cortes and his Spanish companions discovering New Spain and the interactions they had with the indigenous indians, be they good or evil.
To tell this story Buddy Levy uses the writings of various sourc ...more

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Feb 05, 2017 Thomas Elpel rated it it was amazing

I ordered Conquistador while preparing to travel to Mexico City, to better grasp local history. Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztec is the riveting and vivid account of Cortes and his brutal conquest of the Aztec empire in 1519 – 1521. Montezuma, king of the Aztecs, ruled over 15 million people when Cortes arrived with a few hundred Spanish soldiers and Cuban porters. The capitol city of Tenoctitlán, which the conquistadors called the “City of Dreams,” wa ...more

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About Buddy Levy

Buddy Levy

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Buddy Levy BIO--
Writer, educator, public speaker and entertainer, Buddy Levy is the author of Labyrinth of Ice: The Triumphant and Tragic Greely Polar Expedition (St. Martin’s Press, 2019); No Barriers: A Blind Man’s Journey to Kayak the Grand Canyon (co-authored with Erik Weihenmayer, Thomas Dunne Books, 2017; a national bestseller and Honorable Mention Award Winner in the Outdoor Literature cate ...more