The Conquistadors

With startling speed, Spanish conquistadors invaded hundreds of Native American kingdoms, took over the mighty empires of the Aztecs and Incas, and initiated an unprecedented redistribution of the world's resources and balance of power. They changed the course of history, but the myth they
established was even stranger than their real achievements. This Very Short Introduction deploys the latest scholarship to shatter and replace the traditional narrative. Chapters explore New World civilizations prior to the invasions, the genesis of conquistador culture on both sides of the
Atlantic, the roles black Africans and Native Americans played, and the consequences of the invasions. The book reveals who the conquistadors were and what made their adventures possible.

With startling speed, Spanish conquistadors invaded hundreds of Native American kingdoms, took over the mighty empires of the Aztecs and Incas, and initiated an unprecedented redistribution of the world's resources and balance of power. They changed the course of history, but the myth they established was even stranger than their real achievements. This Very Short Introduction deploys the latest scholarship to shatter and replace the traditional narrative. Chapters explore New World civilizations prior to the invasions, the genesis of conquistador culture on both sides of the Atlantic, the roles black Africans and Native Americans played, and the consequences of the invasions.

"Dismissing hoary myths, revising the political narrative, integrating the new findings from ethnohistory, and never losing sight of the conquistadors themselves and their indigenous allies as the protagonists of the story, this book provides an intelligent and fresh overview of the conquest of
Spanish America for twenty-first century readers." -Stuart Schwartz, author of Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico