Conquistadores

A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest

By: Fernando Cervantes

Narrated by: Luis Soto

A sweeping, authoritative history of 16th-century Spain and its legendary conquistadors, whose ambitious and morally contradictory campaigns propelled a small European kingdom to become one of the formidable empires in the world.

"The depth of research in this book is astonishing, but even more impressive is the analytical skill Cervantes applies.... [He] conveys complex arguments in delightfully simple language, and most importantly knows how to tell a good story." (The Times, London)

Over the few short decades that followed Christopher Columbus' first landing in the Caribbean in 1492, Spain conquered the two most powerful civilizations of the Americas: the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, and the other explorers and soldiers who took part in these expeditions dedicated their lives to seeking political and religious glory, helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. But centuries later, these conquistadors have become the stuff of nightmares. In their own time, they were glorified as heroic adventurers, spreading Christian culture and helping to build an empire unlike any the world had ever seen. Today, they stand condemned for their cruelty and exploitation as men who decimated ancient civilizations and carried out horrific atrocities in their pursuit of gold and glory.

In Conquistadores, acclaimed Mexican historian Fernando Cervantes - himself a descendent of one of the conquistadors - cuts through the layers of myth and fiction to help us better understand the context that gave rise to the conquistadors' actions. Drawing upon previously untapped primary sources that include diaries, letters, chronicles, and polemical treatises, Cervantes immerses us in the late-medieval, imperialist, religious world of 16th-century Spain, a world as unfamiliar to us as the Indigenous peoples of the New World were to the conquistadors themselves. His thought-provoking, illuminating account reframes the story of the Spanish conquest of the New World and the half-century that irrevocably altered the course of history.

©2020 Fernando Cervantes (P)2020 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

A Sunday Times and Times Literary Supplement Best Book of the Year

“Masterful . . . Cervantes marshals an enormous array of primary and secondary sources to tell the story of the decades that followed Christopher Columbus' arrival on an island off what is now Cuba.” —NPR

“Spellbinding . . . [Conquistadores is written] with enviable clarity and succinctness, and displays a remarkable command of a vast literature that includes primary as well as secondary sources. Despite its more controversial features and in part because of them, this is the book that readers interested in the Hispanic conquest of America will turn to for a long time to come.” —The New York Review of Books

“Cervantes skillfully constructs a complex story, packed with disturbing nuance, which obliterates that simplistic narrative of brutal conquistadors subduing innocent indigenes. The depth of research in this book is astonishing, but even more impressive is the analytical skill Cervantes applies to his discoveries. He is equally at home in cultural, literary, linguistic, artistic, economic and political history. All this sophisticated scholarship could so easily result in an unwieldy book, easy to admire, but difficult to read. Cervantes, however, conveys complex arguments in delightfully simple language, and most importantly knows how to tell a good story." —The Times (London)

Great book

Idk that the writer is right about all of his conclusions but man, it was one interesting book. I didn’t know much going in and learned a ton. Highly recommend.

Highly Recommended

The author digs deep into primary sources to reveal insights, nuances, and details. Really well done.

Excellent profound and well researched analysis!

Narration very clear, text is engaging and research references are well indicated. No agenda, as unbiased as it gets.

Phenomenal historical narrative, strange ending

Quickly became engrossed in the reading of this book which unfolded a historic narrative in rich detail of the internal and external drivers of the conquistadors. I would put it on the same shelf as Empire of the Summer Moon, except it lost me at the very end. It seems to suddenly conclude a premise in which modern readers can take away a lesson in the benefits of decentralized power while careful to overlook the hacienda system that truly underpinned everything the Spaniards built in the New World until the 20th century. The carefully pruned argument at the end made me look back on the book and realize how light a touch the author treats the abuse and enslavement of the indigenous people by the conquistadors Even though it is still there quite explicitly, it's mostly viewed with a kind of historical distance as a consequence of the historic forces, rather than the actions of persons with individual agency. The focus of the book, stated in the beginning, is the conquistadors and not the people they conquered. I would still highly recommend this book for people interested in the political, military, and historical accounts of this violent meeting of two worlds, but I would argue it holds no lessons for the modern reader except as an illustration of true level of human averice once the shackles of governance is removed.

Fantastic lesson in history

Super fantastic read, great to find an author willing to see past current politics and see the history for what it really was. It should be a required read. Thank you for writing this, it was absolutely perfect!

A fresh mature perspective on the Spanish conquest

This book provides a well-researched and freshly new perspective on the first centuries of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas. Spanish Conquistadores have been vilified, admired, caricatured. The author puts them in a human context: within the historic world-view of 15th century Spain, as it was emerging as one of the first nation-states. Reading it, I realized that some of the big 'conquistas' (Columbus, Mexico, Peru), where a combination of random luck, ambition, treason and blind religious beliefs on both sides, (Spanish and Amerindian). The events would have horrified present audiences for their sheer violence and the resulting human subjugation and extermination. And yet, we are all somehow part of this history that defined the result of a titanic clash of civilizations. The narration by Luis Soto is energetic, accurate, and exemplary in its pronunciation not only of Spanish or Amerindian words and names, but also of German, Dutch and Portuguese examples. It is a great production. highly recommended.

Great subject

For parts of the book, the listener is likely to be confused about town names, historic figures, and the many battles. However, it does have very interesting details of each of the major conquistadors and their relationship with the church and Charles V.

Thorough, but with a Western Apologist tone

I enjoyed the E-Book. The narrator was clear and easy to understand. I enjoyed the way it was organized and that with every new decade or so we started to follow another explorer. My main concern is that it had a significant Apologist tone. I understand the need for creating context and understanding the cultural, political, and religious background of these violent and oftentimes genocidal explorers. However, the author easily highlighted examples of people who did not engage in such violence. I also appreciated all the disclaimers and caveats about where the primary source material came from and how we should try to understand in a certain way. Overall, the book seemed unbalanced in its contextualization of these explorers - focusing too much on explaining why spanish explorers conducted themselves the way they did (could be a result of not enough indigenous resources, but I'm no expert).

Very informative!

This was a very informative and interesting discussion of the conquistadores. The narrator has a great reading voice.

One broader view of new worlds discovery and conquest.

Detailed description of all the expeditions that drove to a new world, includes the abuses and destroy done by conquerors in the name of God and Charles V. Audio narration is not easy to follow if you are not in a secluded place.