Mexico and the Spanish Conquest

Most historians of the Spanish conquest of Mexico (1518) are necessarily dependent on the first-hand accounts of the Spanish conquistadores themselves. This has created a highly distorted and implausible view of the Conquest as a near-miraculous victory for a handful of Europeans, and for European cultural, spiritual and technological superiority, over a huge empire with hundreds of thousands of soldiers at its command. The truth is more complex. Professor Hassig reintroduces the Indians into their own history, retelling the story from the point of view of the invaded rather than the invaders. He shows that it was crucially the internal disunity of the Indians - their fragmented political and military organization and divided aims - that created the conditions for Aztec defeat.;Ross Hassig covers the conquest of Mexico from the first Spanish expeditions into the New World to the fall of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. It gives the background to the complex story of Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards, and analyses the distinctive nature of Aztec political organization and warfare.