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Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs
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..
Price: $15.00
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Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West
An epic story that restores the horse to its rightful place in the history of the American West Mustang is the sweeping story of the wild horse in the culture, history, and popular imagination of the American West. It follows the wild horse from its evolutionary origins on this continent to its return with the conquistadors to its bloody battles on the old frontier to its present plight as it fights for survival on the vanishing range. Along the way, you meet some of the great characters -- equine and human alike -- in American history, including Comanche, the gallant horse that survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn; Charlie Joe, the intrepid cast member of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show; Fritz, the mustang that became America's first equine movie star; and Bugz, the survivor of the 1998 wild horse massacre outside Reno, Nevada. There's also Wild Horse Annie, who lobbied for the first federal protections for mustangs and, after a twenty-year fight, saw them signed into law in 1971. In the tradition of Barry Lopez and Peter Matthiessen, Mustang follows the horse tracks across American history and shows that despite ever-encroaching civilization and dwindling protections, the horses still run wild, with spirit unbroken -- a living tableau of our heritage. But for how much longer, no one can say..
Price: $11.90
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Conquest: Cortes, Montezuma, and the Fall of Old Mexico
THE UNPARALLELED HISTORY OF THE FALL OF OLD MEXICODrawing on newly discovered sources and writing with brilliance, drama, and profound historical insight, Hugh Thomas presents an engrossing narrative of one of the most significant events of Western history. Ringing with the fury of two great empires locked in an epic battle, Conquest captures in extraordinary detail the Mexican and Spanish civilizations and offers unprecedented in-depth portraits of the legendary opponents, Montezuma and Cortés. Conquest is an essential work of history from one of our most gifted historians..
Price: $7.94
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The Last Days of the Incas
In 1532, the fifty-four-year-old Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers, to the shores of Peru. Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers of Peru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor Atahualpa had defeated his brother Huascar. Pizarro and his men soon clashed with Atahualpa and a huge force of Inca warriors at the Battle of Cajamarca. Despite being outnumbered by more than two hundred to one, the Spaniards prevailed -- due largely to their horses, their steel armor and swords, and their tactic of surprise. They captured and imprisoned Atahualpa. Although the Inca emperor paid an enormous ransom in gold, the Spaniards executed him anyway. The following year, the Spaniards seized the Inca capital of Cuzco, completing their conquest of the largest native empire the New World has ever known. Peru was now a Spanish colony, and the conquistadors were wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. But the Incas did not submit willingly. A young Inca emperor, the brother of Atahualpa, soon led a massive rebellion against the Spaniards, inflicting heavy casualties and nearly wiping out the conquerors. Eventually, however, Pizarro and his men forced the emperor to abandon the Andes and flee to the Amazon. There, he established a hidden capital, called Vilcabamba. Although the Incas fought a deadly, thirty-six-year-long guerrilla war, the Spanish ultimately captured the last Inca emperor and vanquished the native resistance. Kim MacQuarrie lived in Peru for five years and became fascinated by the Incas and the history of the Spanish conquest. Drawing on both native and Spanish chronicles, he vividly describes the dramatic story of the conquest, with all its savagery and suspense. MacQuarrie also relates the story of the modern search for Vilcabamba, of how Machu Picchu was discovered, and of how a trio of colorful American explorers only recently discovered the lost Inca capital of Vilcabamba, hidden for centuries in the Amazon. This authoritative, exciting history is among the most powerful and important accounts of the culture of the South American Indians and the Spanish Conquest..
Price: $5.94
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Conquistador: A Novel of Alternate History
A new alternate history of America from the author of The Peshawar Lancers, the bestselling novel the Chicago Sun-Times called "a pleasure to read" and Harry Turtledove hailed as "first-rate adventure all the way." 1945: An ex-marine has discovered a portal that permits him to travel between the America he knows-and a virgin America untouched by European influence. 21st century: The two realities collide....
Price: $1.99
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Conquistadors of the Useless
Frenchman Lionel Terray is one of mountaineering history's great adventurers, and his autobiography, Conquistadors of the Useless, stands among the "100 Greatest Adventure Books of All Time", according to National Geographic Adventure magazine. Following World War II, when France desperately needed successes to heal its wounds, Terray emerged as a national hero, conquering summits atop the planet's highest mountains..
Price: $14.26
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Mexican Americans, American Mexicans: From Conquistadors to Chicanos (American Century Series)
In the years since the first edition of this important study was published, the changes in the Mexican American community in the United States have been great indeed. This extensively revised edition—with a new title—includes expanded chapters on these new developments of the recent past: the Chicano Movimiento of the late sixties and seventies; their considerable political and economic achievements; improvements in immigration law; the creative explosion in literature and the fine arts; the increased role of Chicanas; the rise and decline of four great leaders—César Chávez, "Corky" Gonzales, Reies López Tijerina, and José Angel Gutiérrez. An extensive account of the pre-Columbian world and the impact of the early Spanish explorers and settlers takes note of new findings and interpretations. .
Price: $12.95
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Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-1700
This book argues that the striking resemblances in Spanish and Puritan discourses of colonization as “exorcism” and as spiritual gardening point to a common Atlantic history. These resemblances suggest that we are better off if we simply consider the Puritan colonization of New England as a continuation of Iberian models rather than a radically different colonizing experience. The book demonstrates that a wider Pan-American perspective can upset the most cherished national narratives of the United States, for it maintains that the Puritan colonization of New England was as much a chivalric, crusading act of Reconquista (against the Devil) as was the Spanish conquest.
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Price: $20.98
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Conquistadors
Following in the footsteps of the greatest Spanish adventurers, Michael Wood retraces the path of the conquistadors from Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, and from the deserts of North Mexico to the heights of Machu Picchu. As he travels the same routes as Hernán Cortés, and Francisco and Gonzalo Pizarro, Wood describes the dramatic events that accompanied the epic sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires. He also follows parts of Orellana's extraordinary voyage of discovery down the Amazon and of Cabeza de Vaca's arduous journey across America to the Pacific. Few stories in history match these conquests for sheer drama, endurance, and distances covered, and Wood's gripping narrative brings them fully to life. Wood reconstructs both sides of the conquest, drawing from sources such as Bernal Diaz's eyewitness account, Cortés's own letters, and the Aztec texts recorded not long after the fall of Mexico. Wood's evocative story of his own journey makes a compelling connection with the sixteenth-century world as he relates the present-day customs, rituals, and oral traditions of the people he meets. He offers powerful descriptions of the rivers, mountains, and ruins he encounters on his trip, comparing what he has seen and experienced with the historical record. A wealth of stunning photographs support the text, drawing the reader closer to the land and its people. As well as being one of the pivotal events in history, the Spanish conquest of the Americas was one of the most cruel and devastating. Wood grapples with the moral legacy of the European invasion and with the implications of an episode in history that swept away civilizations, religions, and ways of life. The stories in Conquistadors are not only of conquest, heroism, and greed, but of changes in the way we see the world, history and civilization, justice and human rights..
Price: $10.85
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