This book, now available in paperback, is a challenging and controversial account of the history of Spain in the eighth century. In it Roger Collins assesses the political and cultural impact on Spain of the first hundred years of Arab rule, focusing upon aspects of continuity and discontinuity with Visigoth Spain.

An update of a popular work that takes on the myths of the Spanish Conquest of the Americas, featuring a new afterword. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest reveals how the Spanish invasions in the Americas have been conceived and presented, misrepresented and misunderstood, in the five centuries since Columbus first crossed the Atlantic. This book is a unique and provocative synthesis of ideas and themes that were for generations debated or perpetuated without question in academic and popular circles. The 2003 edition became the foundation stone of a scholarly turn since called The New Conquest History. Each of the book's seven chapters describes one "myth," or one aspect of the Conquest that has been distorted or misrepresented, examines its roots, and explodes its fallacies and misconceptions. Using a wide array of primary and secondary sources, written in a scholarly but readable style, Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest explains why Columbus did not set out to prove the world was round, the conquistadors were not soldiers, the native Americans did not take them for gods, Cortés did not have a unique vision of conquest procedure, and handfuls of vastly outnumbered Spaniards did not bring down great empires with stunning rapidity. Conquest realities were more complex--and far more fascinating--than conventional histories have related, and they featured a more diverse cast of protagonists-Spanish, Native American, and African. This updated edition of a key event in the history of the Americas critically examines the book's arguments, how they have held up, and why they prompted the rise of a New Conquest History.

For many years, scholars of the conquest worked to shift focus away from the Spanish perspective and bring attention to the often-ignored voices and viewpoints of the Indians. But recent work that highlights the “Indian conquistadors” has forced scholars to reexamine the simple categories of conqueror and subject and to acknowledge the seemingly contradictory roles assumed by native peoples who chose to fight alongside the Spaniards against other native groups. The Native Conquistador—a translation of the “Thirteenth Relation,” written by don Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl in the early seventeenth century—narrates the conquest of Mexico from Hernando Cortés’s arrival in 1519 through his expedition into Central America in 1524. The protagonist of the story, however, is not the Spanish conquistador but Alva Ixtlilxochitl’s great-great-grandfather, the native prince Ixtlilxochitl of Tetzcoco. This account reveals the complex political dynamics that motivated Ixtlilxochitl’s decisive alliance with Cortés. Moreover, the dynamic plotline, propelled by the feats of Prince Ixtlilxochitl, has made this a compelling story for centuries—and one that will captivate students and scholars today.

After more than fifty years, Cycles of Conquest is still one of the best syntheses of more than four centuries of conquest, colonization, and resistance ever published. It explores how ten major Native groups in northern Mexico and what is now the United States responded to political incorporation, linguistic hegemony, community reorganization, religious conversion, and economic integration. Thomas E. Sheridan writes in the new foreword commissioned for this special edition that the book is “monumental in scope and magisterial in presentation.” Cycles of Conquest remains a seminal work, deeply influencing how we have come to view the greater Southwest and its peoples.

In Book Twelve of the Florentine Codex, the encyclopedic work on ancient Mexico of Franciscan friar, Bernardino de Sahagún (1499–1590), he focuses on the history of the Spanish conquest. It includes the Nahuati text and Sahagún’s translation into Spanish. The original 1579 manuscript was subsequently revised by Sahagun in 1585 and although the original has been lost, in 1970, John Glass found another copy of the Spanish translation in the Boston Public Library. This was made available to Howard Cline for a project to create an edition of all available versions of Book Twelve. The project was continued and completed by Susan Cline, resulting in the present book. It includes facsimile editions of the Boston manuscript, and notes and opinions by the Mexican scholar Carlos María de Bustamante taken from an 1840 publication. It also includes a transcription of the Boston manuscript and an English translation of the same made by Howard Cline. A fuller history of this work is provided in the introduction by Susan Cline, explaining the differences and possible explanation for the changes between the 1585 revision and the original manuscript.

Can the conquest of one city change the world? In 1519, two powerful empires - Spain and Mexica (Aztec) - were hungry for expansion in central Mexico. Led by emperor Motecuzoma II, the Mexica people had subdued their native enemies and now controlled a sprawling territory with the great city of Tenochtitlán at the center. Then the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés led an attack on the Mexica empire. Although the Spaniards had horses and guns, both unknown in the Americas, the Mexica outnumbered them five hundred to one. The Spaniards had no chance of success without the help of native allies unhappy with Mexica rule. What followed was a desperate war that lasted two years, cost thousands of lives, and left Tenochtitlán in ruins. In 1521 Cortés declared Mexico a colony of New Spain. In so doing, he laid the groundwork for the expansion of European power throughout the Americas and changed the world forever. The Spanish conquest of Mexico is one of world history’s pivotal moments.

The invasions of Guatemala -- Pedro de Alvarado's letters to Hernando Cortes, 1524 -- Other Spanish accounts -- Nahua accounts -- Maya accounts

As Spain rebuilt its colonial regime in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines after the Spanish American revolutions, it turned to history to justify continued dominance. The metropolitan vision of history, however, always met with opposition in the colonies.The Conquest of History examines how historians, officials, and civic groups in Spain and its colonies forged national histories out of the ruins and relics of the imperial past. By exploring controversies over the veracity of the Black Legend, the location of Christopher Columbus's mortal remains, and the survival of indigenous cultures, Christopher Schmidt-Nowara's richly documented study shows how history became implicated in the struggles over empire. It also considers how these approaches to the past, whether intended to defend or to criticize colonial rule, called into being new postcolonial histories of empire and of nations.