History of the Conquest of Mexico - Softcover

William Hickling Prescott

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9781154356823: History of the Conquest of Mexico

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1154356825 ISBN 13: 9781154356823

Publisher: RareBooksClub.com, 2012

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 edition. Excerpt: ... promoted by the accounts they had received of Cortes, by his own arguments and promises, and by the liberal distribution of the gold with which he had been provided. In addition to these matters, Cortes gathered much important intelligence respecting the position of the enemy's force, and his general plan of operations. At Tlascala, the Spaniards were received with a frank and friendly hospitality. It is not said, whether any of the Tlascalan allies had accompanied them from Mexico. If they did, they went no further than their native city. Cortes requested a reinforce me lit of six hundred fresh troops to attend him on his present expedition. It was readily granted, but, before the army had proceeded many miles on its route, the Indian auxiliaries fell off, one after another, and returned to their city. They had no personal feeling of animosity to gratify in the present instance, as in a war against Mexico. It may be, too, lhat, although intrepid in a contest with the bravest of the Indian races, they had had too fatal experience of the prowess of the white men, to care to measure swords with them again. At any rate, they deserted in such numbers, that Cortes dismissed the remainder at once, saying, good-humoredly, " He had rather part with them then, than in the houi of trial.55 The troops soon entered on that wild district in the neighbourhood of Perote, strewed with the wreck of volcanic matter, which forms so singulai a contrast to the general character of beauty with which the scenery is stamped. It was not long before their eyes were gladdened by the approach of Sandoval and about sixty soldiers from the garrison of Vera Cruz, including several deserters from the enemy. It was a most important reinforcement, not more on account of the...

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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."

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About the Author:

Prescott was from a prosperous, old New England family. In 1811 he entered Harvard, where his academic record was good but undistinguished; he had serious difficulties with mathematics, and in later life the prospect of appraising the mathematical achievements of the aboriginal Mexicans almost prevented him from completing his work. Near the end of his junior year, a crust of bread thrown during a melee in the student commons caused virtual blindness in his left eye; the weakness of his other eye, caused by infection, sometimes prevented him from carrying on any kind of literary work. Throughout his life, Prescott's vision seems to have fluctuated from good to total blindness, and he often resorted to the use of a noctograph, a writing grid with parallel wires that guided a stylus over a chemically treated surface. Substantial portions of all his books and correspondence were composed on this device. He died in 1859.

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