Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest

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Summary: Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest
Review: Iconoclastic, restrained and erudite, this outstanding contribution to historical truth was judged by the Economist to be one of the ten best history books of 2003.

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Summary: Underscoring seven key myths and the misconceptions
Review: Seven Myths Of The Spanish Conquest by Matthew Restall (Associate Professor of Latin American History, Women's Studies, and Anthropology, and Director of Latin American Studies, Pennsylvania State University) presents an informed and informative survey of the events of war, dominance, and assimilation associated with the Spanish conquest of the New World and which have all too often been misinterpreted or skewed down through the ages. Underscoring seven key myths and the misconceptions and fallacies surrounding them, Seven Myths Of The Spanish Conquest unravels oversimplified and all too commonly held precepts to show the Spanish Conquest as a far more tangled and complex web of events and motives than popular memory or the remnants of high school textbooks convey.

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Summary: Restall debunks historical myths.
Review: This book is brilliant.

I attended a seminar where we were lucky enough to read Restall's book before it was published. Our mission was to try and debunk at least one of Restall's seven myths. Mission Failure! We found little success. His thesis is tight, his evidence is sound, and is book is great.

Rating:
Summary: Very eloquent
Review: When I was a kid I liked a lot books of a great Russian historian Lev Gumilev and I was glad to find out that historical book in English can be as readable and deep as Gumilev's: "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest" is one of the very few books I was reading without forcing myself to finish the reading - it is very eloquent in regards of historical factology (the text abounds with extremely interesting details), the logic of author's reasoning is clear and transparent and the language of the text is easy to perceive. I would like to single out chapters about myth of the White Conquistador (I would never even think that there was any blacks in America before the famous proposition of Bartolome de Las Casas to Spanish court) and about myth of miscommunication (the author very convincingly depicting the role of translators and language barriers between Spaniards and Natives).
The shortcoming of the book is even though the author unmasks the myths of Spanish Conquest quite successfully he does not really offer any fresh explanation of why the Conquest happened the way it happened. The reasons suggested (horrendous epidemics of unknown diseases and steel weaponry) are well known even though they look quite plausible.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes well written historical books and interested in the history of Americas. I would say if conquistadors' PROBANZAS DE MERITO had been written the same way the book of Mr. Restall, they would all have been definitely approved by Spanish Court:)

Rating:
Summary: Very eloquent
Review: When I was a kid I liked a lot books of a great Russian historian Lev Gumilev and I was glad to find out that historical book in English can be as readable and deep as Gumilev's: "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest" is one of the very few books I was reading without forcing myself to finish the reading - it is very eloquent in regards of historical factology (the text abounds with extremely interesting details), the logic of author's reasoning is clear and transparent and the language of the text is easy to perceive. I would like to single out chapters about myth of the White Conquistador (I would never even think that there was any blacks in America before the famous proposition of Bartolome de Las Casas to Spanish court) and about myth of miscommunication (the author very convincingly depicting the role of translators and language barriers between Spaniards and Natives).
The shortcoming of the book is even though the author unmasks the myths of Spanish Conquest quite successfully he does not really offer any fresh explanation of why the Conquest happened the way it happened. The reasons suggested (horrendous epidemics of unknown diseases and steel weaponry) are well known even though they look quite plausible.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who likes well written historical books and interested in the history of Americas. I would say if conquistadors' PROBANZAS DE MERITO had been written the same way the book of Mr. Restall, they would all have been definitely approved by Spanish Court:)