help the author

[schmarty_hosen]

My friend is working on a book and he's looking for some stellar references. Unfortunately, I know NOTHING about what he's asking for. Can someone help?

thelucyfurr is looking for:

1) An extra-astounding book on the conquest of Mexico by Cortez. I've been reading several, but if you know of one that's extra-awesome I'd love it

Comments

[sollersuk]

For the world of the 1500s, this may not seem obvious at first, but Fernand Braudel's "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Time of Philip II" is brilliant, though expensive - even in paperback.

Re: Another lead...

[sollersuk]

Cortez was way too early for that! The Wild Geese were basically an 18th century phenomenon; and Cortez died ten years before Mary Tudor, well before Portestantism was firmly established in England.

And in any case, Cortes/Cortez is a very common Spanish name from way back. Any derivation is more likely to be the other way round.

[tanaraniel]

For the first one, try Matthew Restall's Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. It has a lot of insight on the encounters and interactions between the Spanish and the Mayans (I think it focuses mostly on Mayans, it's been a while since I read it).

[serrana]

Cortez' complete letters from Mexico were published in a large paperback edition about ten or fifteen years ago. My copy is called (unsurprisingly) Letters from Mexico.

Is your friend bilingual? A certain number of my resources will be in Spanish, and I have no idea if they're available in translation.

[thelucyfurr]

bilingual! I wish :)

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I just finished a book called "Conquest of America" by Tzvetan Todorov which was AMAZING. Got the "Letters from Mexico" and will be reading that, and I just ordered the book suggested above about the Mediterranean in the time of Philip II.

The concept of Quest for Immortality (thus my interest in Ponce de Leon) is very important to this book, so any other suggestions in that direction would be great.

Thanks again!!

[le_jaders]

http://www.amazon.com/Colonial-Lives-Documents-American-1550-1850/dp/0195125126
Colonial Lives isa pretty good book, one of my professors used it last year in his class, and evidently collaborated in writing it as well.

[le_jaders]

This is a good reference for every day life during that time period, it's a bunch of articles written based on documentation of things that happened during in latin america.

http://www.amazon.com/Faces-Honor-Violence-Colonial-Dialogos/dp/0826319068/ref=sr_1_16/105-8741640-4538008?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191561576&sr=1-16
Faces of Honor is not a bad book either especially if you are looking at Latin Americe during this time period in terms of culture.

http://www.amazon.com/Faces-Honor-Violence-Colonial-Dialogos/dp/0826319068/ref=sr_1_16/105-8741640-4538008?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191561576&sr=1-16
And then there is this one, it's more of a text book but it was pretty interesting.

thank you!!!

[thelucyfurr]

Wow! thank you so much...this is getting me looking in a whole new direction.

I found this one, too:

http://www.amazon.com/Colonial-Latin-America-Documentary-History/dp/0842029974/ref=pd_sim_b_shvl_title_3/102-6290834-4725721

The books takes place during the Coronado expedition, so the 1530's-40's are my cultural focus. Do you think either of these books would work just as well?