Helps you to understand the scale of what was achieved, how it was achieved, and what drove them to achieve.

Excellent. Written in a straightforward manner. Read it, then read it to my children who found it gripping.


Brilliant   December 18, 2001
 3 out of 5 found this review helpful

.. it is probably the best historical book i have read. the fact it was written 500 years ago and is still interesting to the average person is rare. diaz writes without bias and dispite being and old book and translated it reads easy. if you are thinking of finding out about the conquest or the Aztecs this is the best book to start with.


A great book - pity about the edition   December 13, 2001
 3 out of 6 found this review helpful

Bernal Diaz's account of the conquest of Tenochtitlan by the Spanish is one of the best documents of that famous event. He is not the world's best writer, but for sheer historical interest his work is fascinating in itself.

However, prospective buyers ought to be aware that this edition cuts out significant portions of the text on really quite important sections - for instance, the Tepeaca campaign; the arrival of Panfilo Narvaez; and others - and so it is no subsitute for consulting the full book in its Spanish original in a good library.

Still, it is better than nothing.


Conquest of a Continent   July 2, 2001
 4 out of 5 found this review helpful

Bernal Diaz's account of his expirences in New Spain (i.e, Mexico and the Aztec Empire) is one of the key texts associated with the expansion into and colonisation of Central and South America by the Spanish in the Sixteenth Century. His first hand account of the Mexica and the practices of the Aztecs, as well as his description of the events leading up to the eventual defeat of the once mighty Aztec Empire by a small band of Spanish adventurers provides important and interesting information about this period and on South American History.

While there are notable inaccuracies and biases in Diaz's account, the editor (J.M. Cohen)provides an excellent interpretation of this primary document and points the reader in the right direction as far as what interpretation to give Diaz's text (written when the former soldier was a very old, and probably bitter, man). However, through no fault of the editor, Diaz suffers from considerable verbal diahorea and much of his account is neither intersting or relevant. Nevertheless, this is one of the most important and complete contemporary documents on the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs, and also one of the few to survive.