Chimalpahin's Conquest: A Nahua Historian's Rewriting of Francisco Lopez de Gomara's La Conquista de Mexico

This volume presents the story of Hernando Cortés's conquest of Mexico, as recounted by a contemporary Spanish historian and edited by Mexico's premier Nahua historian.

Francisco López de Gómara's monumental Historia de las Indias y Conquista de México was published in 1552 to instant success. Despite being banned from the Americas by Prince Philip of Spain, La conquista fell into the hands of the seventeenth-century Nahua historian Chimalpahin, who took it upon himself to make a copy of the tome. As he copied, Chimalpahin rewrote large sections of La conquista, adding information about Emperor Moctezuma and other key indigenous people who participated in those first encounters.

Chialpahin's Conquest is thus not only the first complete modern English translation of López de Gómara's La conquista, an invaluable source in itself of information about the conquest and native peoples; it also adds Chimalpahin's unique perspective of Nahua culture to what has traditionally been a very Hispanic portrayal of the conquest.

Author: Susan Schroeder
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 07/19/2010
Pages: 536
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.89lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.10w x 1.70d
ISBN: 9780804769488

Review Citation(s):
Choice 04/01/2011

About the Author
Susan Schroeder is the Scholes Professor of Colonial Latin American History at Tulane. Anne J. Cruz is Professor of Spanish at the University of Miami. Cristián Roa-de-la-Carrera is Associate Professor of Spanish and Latin American and Latino Studies at the University of Illinois. David E. Tavárez is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Vassar College.