Volume 2, Number 6 · April 30, 1964
Chronicles of the Conquest
By J.H. Elliott
The Conquistadors: First-person Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico
edited and translated by Patricia de Fuentes
Orion, 250 pp., $8.95
Cortes: The Life of the Conqueror
by his Secretary Francisco Lopez de Gomara, translated and edited by Lesley Byrd Simpson
University of California, 425 pp., $8.50
The Aztecs: The History of the Indies of New Spain
by Fray Diego Durán, translated by Doris Heyden, by Fernando Horcasitas
Orion, 382 pp., $12.50
'Every history, even a badly written one, pleases.' To judge from the appearance of these three handsome volumes, all relating to the history of Mexico around the time of the Conquest, Lopez de Gomara's optimistic doctrine is shared by American publishers; and since the histories they contain are both well written and well translated, one hopes that the optimism is justified. An impressive amount has been done in recent years to make available to non-Spanish readers the Spanish records of the New World and of the manner of its conquest. These three editions of sixteenth-century chronicles and relations help to fill some of the outstanding gaps, and at the same time provide an excellent opportunity to compare the attitudes of different kinds of Spaniards to the land and the peoples so providentially added to the realms of the kings of Spain.
Review, 2087 words
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