Reviews for Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico

The average rating for Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2017-03-30 00:00:00 Robyn Liddell Schwartz does a great job in collecting numerous text documents and maps, along with indigenous sources like the Florentine Codex, Codex Mendoza, and other visual recordings of history, that highlight the Conquest of Mexico in the early 16th century. Though any scholar can gather a bunch of documents together in a book that will prove to be popular in a certain interest group, the author has to know where to look, likely know the language(s) of the document and often be able to translate if the original translation is incorrect, and then be able to provide a small but thorough introduction and analysis of the documents in order to give the reader some much-needed context. Here is where Schwartz excels and proves that he has provided a worthy contribution to the scholarly community regarding the Mexica peoples, Spanish conquistadores, and the fall of Tenochtitlan, the island capitol of the Aztec Empire. His own text that precedes the entire book and then the short paragraph(s) before each document that explain their significance are well-written and are the conclusions of a scholar who has spent quite a bit of time in this field and has gained unique insight. The layout is chronological, yes, though in instances where some of the same events are covered by both the Spaniards and Mexica, then the event is relayed through both perspectives. This is great for seeing the differences between the common European tale of an event, like the death of King Montezuma, and the native version, but then the book reads less like a story this way. But keep in mind why this "book" exists: it's a collection of documents to TELL a story (and from multiple perspectives), not to BE the story! Overall, this book was an EXCELLENT read for my collegiate course "Intro to Latin American History" and comparing the Spaniard and indigenous perspective on this harsh, transformative end-of-an-era.

Review # 2 was written on 2012-03-31 00:00:00 Ieva Gailuma I wish this book was written differently. It is quite easy going for the first 40 pages but eventually it gets really thick and confusing. This is because the author cuts and pastes extracts from letters and books. I see why he did it. He wanted to present the conquest of Mexico from both sides, the Victors and the Vanquished. I think the trouble with this book is that it's not suited to my reading preferences. When such cut-and-paste stuff occurs in books there are so many different voices and styles talking one after the other that it's hard to keep it all straight. The fact that these are excerpts often taken out of their full context doesn't help as well. This is why I'm abandoning this book. However, if you're a history buff, you will probably appreciate the first hand accounts from the people who were there.