Conquistadors

By: Michael Wood

Narrated by: John Telfer

Following in the footsteps of the greatest Spanish adventurers, Michael Wood retraces the path of the conquistadors from Amazonia to Lake Titicaca, and from the deserts of North Mexico to the heights of Machu Picchu. As he travels the same routes as Hernán Cortés, Francisco, and Gonzalo Pizarro, Wood describes the dramatic events that accompanied the epic sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires. He also follows parts of Orellana’s extraordinary voyage of discovery down the Amazon and of Cabeza de Vaca’s arduous journey across America to the Pacific. Few stories in history match these conquests for sheer drama, endurance, and distances covered, and Wood’s gripping narrative brings them fully to life.

Wood reconstructs both sides of the conquest, drawing from sources such as Bernal Diaz’s eyewitness account, Cortés’s own letters, and the Aztec texts recorded not long after the fall of Mexico. Wood’s evocative story of his own journey makes a compelling connection with the sixteenth-century world as he relates the present-day customs, rituals, and oral traditions of the people he meets. He offers powerful descriptions of the rivers, mountains, and ruins he encounters on his trip, comparing what he has seen and experienced with the historical record.

As well as being one of the pivotal events in history, the Spanish conquest of the Americas was one of the most cruel and devastating. Wood grapples with the moral legacy of the European invasion and with the implications of an episode in history that swept away civilizations, religions, and ways of life. The stories in Conquistadors are not only of conquest, heroism, and greed but of changes in the way we see the world, history and civilization, justice and human rights.

©2011 Michael Wood (P)2011 AudioGO

Critic reviews

“[An] accessible, literate, and lively book.” (Amazon.com, editorial review)

“The digestible narrative provides a provocative overview of a historical episode that was both magnificent and shameful.” ( Booklist)

“A handsome, lucidly written narrative of events that were, for the most part, a triumph of greed, brutality, and blood.” ( Houston Chronicle)

The trampling of people and culture

Wood does a good job of portraying the unbridled ambition that drove the conquest of the new world. This wa a very engaging read that mixed the history with the modern day quest to see the areas and understand the people of today that remain from the indigenous first people and the mixing of the foreign invaders.

Well thought out. Entertaining and informative

Pretty neat how he in real life is tracing the very footsteps of the men that the stories are about and travelling to visit the current versions of the cities that he is speaking of as he stitches together information from various sources in an effort to give us a more complete picture.

Excellent

Great book. Very informative, and great analysis. The narration is one of the best I've heard.

It’s a must.

No joke this was one of the best audiobooks I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to. The writing was incredible and I found myself transported back through time to the age of conquest. This book was truly incredible 💯

Eye opening experience.

As open as I believed my views to be I see they were all but narrow.