History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H Prescott

History of the Conquest of Mexico by William H Prescott

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.

From the eBook edition.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781358704192
ISBN 10	1358704198
Title	History of the Conquest of Mexico
Author	William H Prescott
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Palala Press
Year published	2016-05-23
Number of pages	548
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.