The Conquest of Mexico (Summarized Edition) (eBook)

Enriched edition. Aztec Empire, Spanish conquest, and the clash of cultures in 16th‑century Mexico—battles, intrigue, and the legacy of colonization

William Hickling Prescott (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2026
352 Seiten
Quickie Classics (Verlag)
859-654788300-5 (EAN)

Infos

William Hickling Prescott's The Conquest of Mexico offers a sweeping narrative of Hernán Cortés's campaign against the Mexica, from the landing at Veracruz and the Tlaxcalan alliance to the Noche Triste and the siege of Tenochtitlan. In polished prose buttressed by notes, Prescott interweaves political, military, and ethnographic strands, drawing on the Cartas de Relación, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, and early ecclesiastical chronicles. As a Romantic-era history, it pairs moral reflection with dramatic set pieces. Prescott, a Bostonian scholar educated at Harvard, composed much of this work while nearly blind, dictating to amanuenses and accessing Spanish archives through transcripts and correspondence. His method—collating rival eyewitnesses against state papers—shows disciplined, proto-critical historicism, even as his Anglo-American, Protestant milieu and antebellum debates about expansion shaped his emphases. Fascinated by civilizational encounter, he aimed to explain both Spanish audacity and Mexica statecraft without reducing either to caricature. This classic warrants contemporary reading for its narrative power and documentary ambition, and as a case study in the making of imperial historiography. Readers of global empire, Indigenous studies, and narrative history will find it rewarding—best approached alongside modern Mesoamerican scholarship that complicates its Eurocentric frames.

Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable—distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Author Biography · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.

Autor

William Hickling Prescott (May 4, 1796 – January 28, 1859) was an eminent American historian, renowned for his comprehensive works on Spanish and Spanish-American colonial history. Despite enduring significant visual impairment from an early age, Prescott's tenacious pursuit of scholarship enabled him to produce meticulously researched historical narratives. His prose is recognized not only for its scholarly rigor but also for its eloquence and vivid storytelling, capturing the complexity of historical events and figures with a literary flair uncommon in historical writing. Prescott's most acclaimed work, 'The Conquest of Mexico' (1843), delves into the demise of the Aztec Empire at the hands of Hernán Cortés and his troops, providing an account that intertwines military conquest with ethnographic observation and political analysis. The breadth of his research, often relying on primary sources, and his narrative skill placed him at the forefront of historiography in his era and helped shape the field of history as a literary art form as well as an academic pursuit. His other significant works include 'The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic' (1837) and 'The History of the Conquest of Peru' (1847), both of which further cemented his reputation as a leading historian of his time, and paved the way for future scholarly inquiry into the Spanish Empire and its legacy.

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 10.1.2026
• Einführung: Isaac Turner
• Mitarbeit: Kommentare: Isaac Turner; Anpassung von: Isaac Turner
• Verlagsort: Prague
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► Regional- / Landesgeschichte
• Schlagworte: 16th century exploration • Aztec empire history • colonial political intrigue • detailed descriptive prose • European colonization impact • Historical battles analysis • indigenous cultural clashes • Latin American Studies • Spanish conquest narrative • vivid storytelling techniques