Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs

I ordered Conquistador while preparing to travel to Mexico City, to better grasp local history. Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztec is the riveting and vivid account of Cortes and his brutal conquest of the Aztec empire in 1519 – 1521. Montezuma, king of the Aztecs, ruled over 15 million people when Cortes arrived with a few hundred Spanish soldiers and Cuban porters. The capitol city of Tenoctitlán, which the conquistadors called the “City of Dreams,” was built on Lake Texcoco, much like Venice, yet bigger and more beautiful than any European city of the era. Through shrewd military campaigns, duplicity, and diplomacy, Cortes conquered the Aztecs and Mexico in the name of the Spanish Crown, utterly destroying Tenoctitlán in the process. The subject matter may not be uplifting, but author Buddy Levy’s telling of it is absolutely spellbinding. Moreover, it is astonishing that such a detailed play-by-play account of the events was recorded and preserved for five hundred years. I listened to the story on unabridged CD, as read by Patrick Lawlor, and found Conquistador so compelling as to listen to it a second time.

Great supplemental reading for the book Aztec by Gary Jennings.
This book gives a good historical outlook on both indigenous and European perspectives on the conquest. Of course, there are many details that would definitely remind you that this book is very much historical FICTION; but I don't think this takes away from the legitimacy of the story. Besides, there are many intimate interactions between conquistadors and the natives that may have very well occurred in the manner described in this book, but have never been documented.