A review by boxcar
Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs by Buddy Levy

adventurous dark informative sad fast-paced

4.5

Great telling of Cortes’ assault against the Aztecs. The brutality and human toll is made abundantly clear, and it is not a tale of good guys. Written very compellingly. Absolutely fascinating how an entire culture, the heavyweight of america and perhaps the biggest city in the world can be toppled in a few years. What a damn shame that the meeting of hitherto alien cultures and empires meant the end of one rather than the combination and development of two, together. Devastating, the numbers of human lives lost betrays any possible comprehension. 

I appreciated the author’s repeated noting of hypocrisy in the spaniard motivations and justification. Human sacrifice as the justification for torture, enslavement and massacre. Christianity as the supposed motivation to sin in such quantity and at such disgusting lengths.