Victors and Vanquished Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico

Using excerpts primarily drawn from Bernal Diaz's 1632 account of the Spanish victory and from testimonies--many recently uncovered--of indigenous Nahua survivors gathered by Bernardino de Sahagun, "Victors and Vanquished" clearly demonstrates how personal interests, class and ethnic biases, and political considerations can influence interpretation of events. A substantial introduction is followed by 9 chronological sections that illuminate the major events and personalities in this powerful historical episode and reveal the changing attitudes toward European expansionism.

STUART B. SCHWARTZ is George Burton Adams Professor of History at Yale University. His scholary work concentrates on the early history of Latin America and the history of Brazil. He is the author of Slaves, Peasants, and Rebels: Reconsidering Brazilian Slavery (1992) and Sugar Plantations and the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia 1550-1835 (1985), which won the American Historical Association's Bolton Prize for the Best Work in Latin American History. Professor Schwartz is also editor of Implicit Understandings: The Encounter Between Europeans and Other Peoples in the Early Modern Era (1994) and a coeditor of The Cambridge History of Native American Peoples (1999). A former fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study, and the American Council of Learned Societies, he is currently completing a work entitled The Rebellion of Portugal and the Crisis of the Iberian Empires, 1621-1668.