Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs - Buddy Levy Audiobook

Written by Buddy Levy
Read by Patrick Lawler
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Length: 12 hrs and 13 mins
Release date: 07-16-08
Publisher: Tantor Audio

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 between two men from civilizations a world apart. Only one would survive the encounter. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico with a roughshod crew of adventurers and the intent to expand the Spanish empire. Along the way, this brash and roguish conquistador schemed to convert the native inhabitants to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in his intentions is one of the most remarkable—and tragic—aspects of this unforgettable story of conquest.

In Tenochtitlán, the famed City of Dreams, Cortés met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, ruler of fifteen million people, and commander of the most powerful military machine in the Americas. Yet in less than two years, Cortés defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astonishing military campaigns ever waged. Sometimes outnumbered in battle thousands-to-one, Cortés repeatedly beat seemingly impossible odds. Buddy Levy meticulously researches the mix of cunning, courage, brutality, superstition, and finally disease that enabled Cortés and his men to survive.
Conquistador is the story of a lost kingdom—a complex and sophisticated civilization where floating gardens, immense wealth, and reverence for art stood side by side with bloodstained temples and gruesome rites of human sacrifice. It’s the story of Montezuma—proud, spiritual, enigmatic, and doomed to misunderstand the stranger he thought a god. Epic in scope, as entertaining as it is enlightening, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.

Praise for Conquistador
“Prodigiously researched and stirringly told, Conquistador is a rarity: an invaluable history lesson that also happens to be a page-turning read.”

The common perception of the Spanish conquest of Mexico is that a handful of men led by Hernán Cortés landed and, with the help of European technology, overcame the Aztec Empire. Levy (English, Washington State Univ.; “American Legend: The Real-Life Adventures of David Crockett”) reminds us that it was a protracted struggle in which the Spaniards came very close to being wiped out. It was only Cortés’s tactics and his ability to form alliances with other native peoples, who wished to be free of Aztec hegemony, that saved the Spaniards. Drawing heavily on both Spanish and Aztec sources, as well as major secondary works, Levy gives a straightforward telling of the entire story, stressing the military strategy, diplomatic initiatives, and personal relationship between Cortés and Aztec emperor Montezuma. For those seeking more detail, his notes provide copious references to William Prescott’s monumental “The History of the Conquest of Mexico” (1843) and Hugh Thomas’s authoritative and comprehensive “Conquest: Cortés, Montezuma and the Fall of Old Mexico”, as well as to other works. This well-written book is a good starting point for those seeking to understand the conquest of Mexico. Highly recommended