The History of the Conquest of New Spain

Besides containing important passages, scenes, and events excluded from other abridgments, this edition includes eight useful interpretive essays that address Bernal Diaz's political and religious agenda, the significance of La Malinche, colonial sexuality, and indigenous religious and cultural practices. A series of maps illuminates the routes of the conquistadors, the organization of indigenous settlements, the cosmology of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, and the disastrous Spanish journey to Guatemala. Book jacket.

David Carrasco is Neil L. Rudenstine Professor of the Study of Latin America with a joint appointment in the Department of Anthropology and the Divinity School at Harvard University