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"It is a magnificent epic," said William H. Prescott after the publication of History of the Conquest of Mexico in 1843. Since then, his sweeping account of Cortés's subjugation of the Aztec people has endured as a landmark work of scholarship and dramatic storytelling. This pioneering study presents a compelling view of the clash of civilizations that reverberates in Latin America to this day.
"Regarded simply from the standpoint of literary criticism, the Conquest of Mexico is Prescott's masterpiece," judged his biographer Harry Thurston Peck. "More than that, it is one of the most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary art applied to historical narration. . . . Here, as nowhere else, has Prescott succeeded in delineating character. All the chief actors of his great historic drama not only live and breathe, but they are as distinctly differentiated as they must have been in life. Cortés and his lieutenants are persons whom we actually come to know in the pages of Pres-cott. . . . Over against these brilliant figures stands the melancholy form of Montezuma, around whom, even from the first, one feels gathering the darkness of his coming fate. He reminds one of some hero of Greek tragedy, doomed to destruction and intensely conscious of it, yet striving in vain against the decree of an inexorable destiny. . . . [Prescott] transmuted the acquisitions of laborious research into an enduring monument of pure literature."
From the eBook edition.
- Sales Rank: #174691 in Books
- Published on: 2001-12-04
- Released on: 2001-12-04
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.98" h x 1.85" w x 5.18" l, 2.10 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 1056 pages
Review
The sheer accumulation of substantiated detail is propelled forward by Prescott's unsparing identification with the fundamentally tragic nature of the conflict.... He has intuited that the "conquest" of Mexico was, in fact, the unsuccessful enterprise of grafting one civilization upon another. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, Neil Baldwin
From the Inside Flap
"It is a magnificent epic," said William H. Prescott after the publication of "History of the Conquest of Mexico in 1843. Since then, his sweeping account of Cortes's subjugation of the Aztec people has endured as a landmark work of scholarship and dramatic storytelling. This pioneering study presents a compelling view of the clash of civilizations that reverberates in Latin America to this day.
"Regarded simply from the standpoint of literary criticism, the "Conquest of Mexico is Prescott's masterpiece," judged his biographer Harry Thurston Peck. "More than that, it is one of the most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary art applied to historical narration. . . . Here, as nowhere else, has Prescott succeeded in delineating character. All the chief actors of his great historic drama not only live and breathe, but they are as distinctly differentiated as they must have been in life. Cortes and his lieutenants are persons whom we actually come to know in the pages of Pres-cott. . . . Over against these brilliant figures stands the melancholy form of Montezuma, around whom, even from the first, one feels gathering the darkness of his coming fate. He reminds one of some hero of Greek tragedy, doomed to destruction and intensely conscious of it, yet striving in vain against the decree of an inexorable destiny. . . . [Prescott] transmuted the acquisitions of laborious research into an enduring monument of pure literature."
"From the eBook edition.
About the Author
William Hickling Prescott, the renowned American historian who chronicled the rise and fall of the Spanish empire, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, on May 4, 1796. His grandfather had commanded colonial forces at the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American Revolution; his father was a highly respected judge and philanthropist. Prescott was tutored in Latin and Greek by the rector of Trinity Church in Boston and entered Harvard in 1811. In a bizarre accident, Prescott was blinded in the left eye by a crust of bread thrown in a dining-hall fracas. He abandoned plans to study law but went on to graduate in 1814 having earned membership in Phi Beta Kappa. While traveling abroad the following year Prescott temporarily lost the sight in his right eye. With his vision permanently impaired, he aspired to the life of gentleman-scholar. Prescott launched a career as a man of letters in 1821 with an essay on Byron that appeared in the North American Review. Over the next two decades he contributed regularly to the prestigious Boston literary journal. His most important articles and reviews, including seminal pieces on the theory and practice of historical composition, were later collected in Biographical and Critical Miscellanies (1845) and Critical and Historical Essays (1850).
Under the influence of George Ticknor, a friend and mentor who taught European literature at Harvard, Prescott began learning Spanish in 1824. Engrossed by the history of Spain, he committed himself to tracing its development into a world power. Employing secretaries to read him manuscripts sent from Spanish archives, Prescott set about writing a work of sound scholarship that would also interest a general audience. A phenomenal memory allowed him to compose whole chapters in his mind during morning horseback rides. Later he recorded them on paper using a noctograph, a special stylus for the blind. More than a decade later he finished The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (1837), which enjoyed tremendous critical and popular success on both sides of the Atlantic.
Prescott's fame gained him entrée into Spanish intellectual circles, greatly facilitating research on his next book, History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843), a sweeping account of Cortés's subjugation of the Aztec people. "Regarded simply from the standpoint of literary criticism, the Conquest of Mexico is Prescott's masterpiece," judged his biographer Harry Thurston Peck. "More than that, it is one of the most brilliant examples which the English language possesses of literary art applied to historical narration. . . . [Prescott] transmuted the acquisitions of laborious research into an enduring monument of pure literature." Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Daniel J. Boorstin agreed: "The enduring interest in Prescott's Conquest of Mexico comes less from his engaging survey of Aztec civilization than from his genius for the epic. . . . Though Prescott has been called the nation's first 'scientific historian' for his use of manuscript sources, he would live on as a creator of literature."
Prescott completed his pioneering study of Spanish exploits in the New World with the History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), a vivid chronicle of Pizarro's tumultuous overthrow of the Inca empire. "The Conquest of Peru represents an author's triumph over his materials," observed Donald G. Darnell, one of the historian's several biographers. "Prescott exploits to the fullest any opportunities for dramatic effects that history might provide him. . . . The description of the Inca civilization, particularly its wealth, the precise explanation of the cause of the conflict between the conquerors, and the depiction of the Spanish character—these together with the careful research, the sheer abun dance of anecdotes, and the exploitation of primary materials all contribute to the history's continuing popularity."
Prescott devoted his final years to chronicling the decline of the Spanish empire. He published The Life of Charles the Fifth after His Abdication (1856), a continuation of William Robertson's The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles the Fifth (1769), but only managed to finish the first three volumes of The History of the Reign of Philip the Second (1855-58). William H. Prescott died of a stroke at his home in Boston on January 29, 1859. In assessing his achievements, Daniel J. Boorstin wrote: "One of Prescott's greatest feats as a 'scientific' historian was to depict the scenes of his drama so vividly without ever having been there—for he never visited Spain, Mexico, or Peru. . . . Prescott created from the rawest of raw material, laboring under physical handicaps and displaying a single-minded courage with few precedents in the annals of literature. . . . He had to discover the landscape, conceive new heroes, and mark their own paths through time. The story of how he made his histories was itself a kind of epic."
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
I should have known better. The story was written in the 1800s
By Amazon Customer
I should have known better. The story was written in the 1800s, we know SO MUCH more about the real history of the Azteca. He even mentions how malaria was contacted because of swampy, humid areas. Now we know it's because of the dreaded mosquito. I didn't finish the book, but I will sometime in the future.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
THE FAMED 19TH CENTURY HISTORIAN'S ACCOUNT OF CORTÉS AND MONTEZUMA
By Steven H Propp
William Hickling Prescott (1796-1859) was an eminent American historian. He wrote in the Preface to this 1843 book, "Although the subject of the work is, properly, only the Conquest of Mexico, I have prepared the way for it by such a view of the civilization of the ancient Mexicans ... If I shall have succeeded in giving the reader a just idea of the true nature and extent of the civilization to which the Mexicans had attained, it will not be labour lost." (Pg. xviii) He notes difficulty of his task, however: "his [Montezuma's] history is to be collected solely from Spanish writers... It is the hard fate of this unfortunate monarch, to be wholly indebted for his portraiture to the pencil of his enemies." (Pg. 220)
He states, "The tutelary diety of the Aztecs was the god of war... The soldier, who fell in battle, was transported at once to the regions of ineffable bliss... Every war, therefore, became a crusade; and the warrior, animated by a religious enthusiasm, like that of the ... Christian crusader ... courted... the imperishable crown of martyrdom. Thus we find the same impulse acting in the most opposite quarters of the globe... each earnestly invoking the holy name of religion in the perpetuation of human butchery." (Pg. 19)
He records "the popular traditions respecting Quetzalcoatl, that deity with a fair complexion and flowing beard, so unlike the Indian physiognomy, who... promised, on his departure, to return at some future day with his posterity." (Pg. 122) Later, Cortés "encouraged the idea that his own sovereign was the great Being indicated by Montezuma." (Pg. 242)
When Cortés and his men ordered Montezuma to leave his palace and threatened physical violence, Montezuma "consented to accompany the strangers---to quit the palace, whither he was never more to return. Had he possessed the spirit of the first Montezuma, he would have called his guards around him, and left his life-blood on the threshold, sooner than have been dragged a dishonoured captive across it. But his courage sank under circumstances. He felt he was the instrument of irresistible Fate!" (Pg. 275-276)
Prescott summarizes, "That a small body of men, like the Spaniards, should have entered the palace of a mighty prince, have seized his person in the midst of his vassals, have borne him off a captive to their quarters---that they should have put to an ignominious death before his face his high officers... and have crowned the whole by putting the monarch in irons like a common malefactor... in the very heart of his capital, surrounded by thousands and tens of thousands who trembled at his nod, and would have poured out their blood like water in his defence---that all this should have been done by a mere handful of adventurers, is a thing too extravagant, altogether too improbable, for the pages of romance! It is, nevertheless, literally true." (Pg. 279)
Prescott argues, "Yet we cannot regret the fall of an empire which did so little to promote the happiness of its subjects, or the real interests of humanity... the Aztecs were emphatically a fierce and brutal race, little calculated, in their best aspects, to excite our sympathy and regard..." (Pg. 504) He concludes, "The Indian empire was in a manner conquered by Indians. The Aztec monarchy fell by the hands of its own subjects, under the direction of European sagacity and science. Had it been united, it might have bidden defiance to the invaders. As it was, the capital was dissevered from the rest of the country... Its fate may serve as a striking proof, that a government, which does not rest on the sympathies of its subjects... must fall---if not... by violence from within, if not from without. And who shall lament their fall?" (Pg. 506)
Although written 170 years ago, this history is still an engrossing and informative one, which any students of this period will benefit from studying.
48 of 49 people found the following review helpful.
One of Our Greatest Works of Historical Art
By Ben Kilpela
This book is one of the greatest works of world literature, but it can be a deeply disturbing read. By turns, the heart races in outrage and sinks in sorrow at the retelling of the events surrounding Cortes's conquest of the Aztec Empire from 1519 to 1521. There has seldom been an event in history with greater drama, greater conflict, greater peril, and greater moral consequence. Though the conquest is not a turning point in world history, its events can help us fathom many of the most pressing and profound moral and political issues we face down to this day. Prescott tells the story of the conquest superbly, with depth, precision, elegance, sympathy, drama, and emotional power. There are few prose stylists as fine as William Hickling Prescott in the history of English literature, and this is not known widely enough. Many a swollen six-volume history from centuries past has become the province of scholars; few are the classic histories that still can command the attention of lay readers. This is one of them. Many lay readers and scholars testify that this book has lost none of its savor or substance. Prescott emulated Gibbon, that marvel of magnificence in English prose, but thankfully Prescott's style isn't quite as magnificently glorious as the historian's who laid out the momentous decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Prescott's prose stands a bit lower on the register than Gibbon's heroic grandeur; yet Prescott achieves a depth of perception, elegance, and insight that is matched by few writers in all of English literature. As with Gibbon, Prescott's sentences and paragraphs stand as works of art; they not are to be hurried through for the story only, but pondered with an expectation of almost unbounded discovery. Also like Gibbon, Prescott was a master of the subtle, sly aside and the telling tangent.
At the center of Prescott's story is the enthralling conquistador Hernan Cortes, that extraordinarily daring captain of the expedition to conquer the Aztecs; in two years, Cortes led a preposterously small band of Spanish soldiers across the Empire and succeeded, highly improbably, in toppling it. Is this one of the key moments of history? For Central America, certainly, but for world history probably not. Nonetheless, it is one of the most riveting stories of early modern times, and you should know it well. Moreover, our evaluations of the actions and ideas of Cortes and his men can help us understand what it means to be good, to toil as servants of the good, and to create a good society. It is easy to get furious with Cortes's band as we read of them fulfilling their audacious mission of conquest. It is easier still to morally condemn them. It could be that they deserve condemnation. But perhaps the matter deserves a very close look, and Prescott can help us examine and judge their actions better than any historian ever. In my view, there are three crucial events that demand our account: (1) the massacre at Cholula, (2) the Noche Triste, an escape of the Spaniards from Tenochtitlan at mid-conquest, and (3) the brutal siege of Tenochtitlan in the final act. Through these and the other events of the conquest, Prescott can guide us in evaluating our principles of morality, government, war, liberty, and religion, as well as the meaning of life and society. This book is a classic now, having been written some 150 years ago. Many histories and studies of the conquest have been written up to the present, but none matches Prescott's in the power and depth of its insights into human nature and society, and none matches it in the beauty and power of its prose. Prescott has much to say about why people behave as they do, about the power of religion, the thirst for gold and glory, the temptations of ambition, the rationalization of crimes and sin, and much, much more. Surely by now you realize that I cannot recommend this great history highly enough. It remains in print in several editions, which is a testament to its enduring appeal both to scholars and readers, and it is most deserving of all the attention it still receives.
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