Conquistadores

Written with narrative flair and meticulous erudition, this splendid book strips away the stubborn fantasies and prejudices which tend to characterise accounts of the Spanish conquest of the Americas. Drawing on up-to-date scholarship, it describes the late-medieval mindset of the conquistadors and analyses the sophisticated political culture of the Spanish Monarchy to show how, from the violent encounters of mutually alien peoples, there emerged multi-ethnic and culturally diverse societies which proved to be surprisingly resilient and stable over three hundred years. This is an indispensable contribution to our understanding of the historical roots of our globalized world. -- Edwin Williamson, author of The Penguin History of Latin America A brilliant account of the men, from Columbus to Pizarro, who conquered and settled most of Central and South America. Fernando Cervantes tells a complex, subtle and persuasive story of their actions. It is a story not only of simple, brutal, conquest - but also of cooperation, of shifting alliances, of the infiltration of Europeans into regions which had for long been zones of almost ceaseless conflict, and of prolonged, if ultimately frustrated, attempts to build a society which would fuse European and indigenous legal, social and political systems. The entire history of European imperialism and colonization is in urgent need of complete revision. Conquistadors is an evocative, courageous, and immensely readable beginning. -- Anthony Pagden, author of The Enlightenment: And Why It Still Matters With reason, evidence, common sense, uncompromising candour and disciplined imagination Fernando Cervantes makes the conquistadores believable. He guides us expertly through the moral labyrinth of empire, amid warts and wonders, sins and saints, crimes and creativity. -- Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, author of Out of Our Minds: What We Think and How We Came To Think It Fernando Cervantes has written a superb account of a world-changing half-century, interweaving narrative and analysis to compelling effect. The conquistadors were ruthless men, and did unspeakable things, but Cervantes wants us to understand them, rather than merely condemn. His book brilliantly illuminates a world-view which was in some ways closer to that of the indigenous peoples the conquistadors overpowered than it is to ours. -- Peter Marshall, author of Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation A veritable compendium on the Spanish conquest of the Americas ... the book is welcome, and it most certainly meets its goal of presenting the colonisers as real people ... Professor Cervantes is a talented man, and his book is staggeringly thorough. -- Camilla Townsend * BBC History Magazine * Cervantes places the conquest of the Americas in Spain's political context ... a rich portrait of a period that is almost unimaginable today ... a persuasive reassessment. -- Daniel Rey * The Spectator * Superb ... Conquistadores tells the story of the discovery and conquest of the New World, and tells it very well. His portraits of Cortes, Pizarro, Hernando de Soto and the other conquistadors are as vivid as one could wish. -- Daniel Johnson * The Critic * Enlightening ... For a vivid portrayal of a clash of very different cultures, each equally astonishing to the other, and a group of men who whatever their myriad faults and crimes ... succeeded more or less through their own agency, in fundamentally transforming Spanish and European conceptions of the world in barely half a century , Conquistadores makes for fascinating reading. -- Jude Webber * Financial Times * Lively, complex, compelling ... Cervantes is too good a historian to try to whitewash the half-century of conquistador activities that is his focus. Atrocities accompanied conquistadores wherever they went, and Cervantes seldom shies away from detailing and condemning them ... This book is a terrific read ... I could not put it down. -- Matthew Restall * Literary Review * Carefully researched and vividly written, Cervantes' account blasts hole after hole in the 21st-century view of the conquistadors as little more than 16th-century Nazis ... He is brilliant at showing the wider context: the fall of the emirate of Granada, the eruption of Lutheranism, the rivalry between Spain, France and the Ottomans. -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times *