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The Conquest of New Spain (Classics S) Paperback – August 30, 1963

by Bernal Diaz Del Castillo (Author), John M. Cohen (Translator, Introduction)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 517 ratings
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Vivid, powerful and absorbing, this is a first-person account of one of the most startling military episodes in history: the overthrow of Montezuma's doomed Aztec Empire by the ruthless Hernan Cortes and his band of adventurers. Bernal Díaz del Castillo, himself a soldier under Cortes, presents a fascinatingly detailed description of the Spanish landing in Mexico in 1520 and their amazement at the city, the exploitation of the natives for gold and other treasures, the expulsion and flight of the Spaniards, their regrouping and eventual capture of the Aztec capital.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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  1. Print length
    416 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Penguin Books
  4. Publication date
    August 30, 1963
  5. Grade level
    12 and up
  6. Reading age
    18 years and up
  7. Dimensions
    7.76 x 5.08 x 0.99 inches
  8. ISBN-10
    0140441239
  9. ISBN-13
    978-0140441239
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Spanish historian Bernal Diaz del Castillo (c.1492-1584) was a soldier in the army of the conquistador Cortes in the attack on the Aztecs.

J M Cohen translated widely from French and Spanish, including for Penguin Classics Montaigne's Essays and Cervantes' Don Quixote.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Books (August 30, 1963)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140441239
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140441239
  • Reading age ‏ : ‎ 18 years and up
  • Grade level ‏ : ‎ 12 and up
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.76 x 5.08 x 0.99 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 517 ratings

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Bernaz Diaz del Castillo

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4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
517 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Joe Blow
5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest adventure story I've every read
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2017
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Told in the first person, it starts with getting lost in a storm near Cuba and landing the Yucatan Peninsula (at the time no European had landed on the mainland except for Florida). Craziest story I have ever read. Some old books can be long winded so I'll skim. I didn't skim this one. There are things that are so crazy to us that he just mentions in passing (for instance he compliments Montezuma on having the second best slave market in the world and notes that they burned Montezuma's generals alive each only once in one paragraph respectively). The writing style is what you would expect from a hardened soldier: very matter of fact, detailed, and brutally honest. Frankly, I'd stop after they take Mexico City, after that they just run around taking smaller groups and there’s no real ending. He does a very good job of putting the reader in the position of a group of men in a totally new place with no idea what will happen the next day or if they will live. Every day. For like 4 years. Written in the late 1500's you might expect the writer to be all superstitious or just seem off (the way Columbus is in his writings for instance). Diaz has different values (he complains several times of Cortes stealing his pretties slaves....), but the feel and the matter of factness of his writing makes you feel like he could be from our time which makes you feel like you’re in his while reading.

Here's a quote: "It was only the following morning we were able to discover our true condition. There was not one among us who had not, up to this moment, received one, two, or three wounds, and all were more or less weakened by fatigues and hardships. Xicotencatl continued to hover around us, and we had already lost fifty-five of our men [of only 400], some of whom were killed on the field of battle, others had died of disease and from excessive cold. Twelve of our men were knocked up with fatigue, and even our commander-in-chief himself [Cortes] and father Olmedo were suffering from fever. But no one can wonder at this; for among all the hardships we had to undergo, we never durst for one moment leave our heavy weapons out of our hands; to all these discomforts was added the severity of the weather, and particularly our great want of salt, which we could find no means of obtaining. It was also natural that we should begin to think what would be the final issue of this campaign, and if we once got out of the present snare where we were next to bend our steps; for the idea of penetrating into Mexico appeared to us perfectly laughable, when we considered the great power of that state. If even we succeeded in making the same good terms with the people of Tlascalla as we had done with the Sempoallans, what would become of us if we ever came to an engagement with the great armies of Motecusuma?"

Here's another quote: "These were constructed of heavy timber, and filled with grown-up men and little boys, who were fattening there for the sacrifices and feasts. These diabolical cages Cortes ordered to be pulled down, and sent the prisoners each to their several homes. He likewise made the chiefs and papas promise him, under severe threats, never again to fasten up human beings in that way, and totally to abstain from eating human flesh. But what was the use of promises which they never intended to keep?"

Honestly, I liked the translation from Project Gutenberg a little better, but this version is easier and comes in paperback.
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Alan Gallagher
5.0 out of 5 stars A splendid book and translation, a first-hand account of the defeat of the Aztec empire
Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2020
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Diaz del Castillo, Bernal (1963). The Conquest of New Spain. Translated by J.M. Cohen. New York: Penguin Books. From the original account written by Diaz at the age of 89 in Guatemala. He had accompanied the first two Spanish expeditions to Mexico, and the third, led by Cortez, which conquered Mexico. His is a soldier’s first=hand account of the first Spanish/European contacts with the inhabitants of what is now Mexico.
In these days, with lies and myths advanced by anti-US advocates, and anti-White/anti-European advocates, it is good and necessary to read original first-hand accounts of what Europeans found in their first encounters with inhabitants of the Americas. What they found was not pretty. The same is true of what Europeans found in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Human nature is the same everywhere, where humans are capable of great evil as well as good, where war and slavery were the norm, where invasion and the horrors of war and conquest were the stuff of history. Great civilizations were created, usually upon the basis of slavery and conquest, with attendant murders, tortures, and rapes. Mankind had many gods, but also many devils. The great invasions came out of Asia, as with the Mongols, and later the Muslim invasions of Africa, the Middle East to India, and Asia. The Chinese and Japanese invaded and conquered their neighbors. And so on. Europe was not exempt, as the 19th and 20th Centuries so sadly and clearly showed, with imperialism/colonialism, followed by World Wars and the Holocaust. These were more than matched, however, by the evils of communism in Russia, China, and Indochina, and by the genocides of Africa. Mankind, whether on a large scale or small, has always shown great capacities for evil, from great empires to the most isolated and primitive tribes.
The story of Diaz is a dramatic first-hand account, a soldier’s story, including the first encounters with armed and warlike Indians on the Yucatan Peninsula, the Destruction of the Ships at Vera Cruz, the “Noche de Tristeza,” and the defeat of an empire by a small band of Spanish adventurers. Whatever one thinks of the Spanish, this was a remarkable achievement. Fewer than 200 men defeated a great empire. The world was then and now one in which the question was not whether nations would conquer one another, but who would rule. The successful invasion and conquest of Mexico by the United States in 1846-48 was likewise a remarkable military achievement, although it may be (and was, by such as Lincoln, Grant, and Thoreau) condemned on moral grounds. Still, the Spanish/Mexicans had no right, other than of conquest, to Texas and the American West/Southwest, and ruled over these lands with a heavy dictatorial hand (as indeed all rulers of Mexico in historical time have done: The Aztecs and other Mexican empires, the Colonial Spanish, the Independent Mexicans (e.g. Santa Ana and Porfirio Diaz), the Mexicans during and after the Revolution of 1910-1920 and the Cristero War, the PRI and its 20th Century dictatorship and one party state, and the recent narco=state corrupt Mexico. The question of North America was not whether it would be controlled, but who would control it: the candidates included Russia, Britain, France, Spain, Mexico, the Confederacy, and the United States, with minor roles played, e.g., by The Netherlands and Sweden. Texas, recall, was famously “under Six Flags.” During the American Civil War, when America was preoccupied, France again invaded and took over Mexico under Maximillian, until, the Civil War over, he was deposed and executed. During World War I, the Germans sought to ally with Mexico with promises to restore to Mexico the lands taken by the US.
Contrary to lies and myths, the American Indians/Native Americans were not idyllic or peaceful. When encountered by Columbus in the Caribbean (Hispaniola, Cuba), the Indians were warlike, conquerors, some cannibals, and with slaves. They killed all members of the first Spanish settlement at Navidad. The Indians, without provocation, attacked the first Spanish visitors to the Yucatan, killing nearly 60 of the Spanish, and regularly showed warlike dispositions. They also practiced human sacrifice and at least ritual cannibalism throughout the region. The Aztecs simply practiced these habits on a much greater scale. When Cortez arrived at Vera Cruz, local Indian Tribal Leaders pleaded for his aid against the Aztecs, who took their young men for human sacrifices, and their young women for rape. It was through alliance with these dissident Indian Tribes that Cortez, with very few men, was able to defeat the Aztec Empire. One need not idealize the Spanish, who constantly engaged in factions and internal disputes and maneuverings for power and wealth, to understand that the Indians were not “Noble Savages” or living in “Paradise,” but were living in a Hobbesian world where life was “brutal, nasty, and short.”
The first-hand observations of Columbus, of his son, of Bernal Diaz, and of Bartolome de las Casas, make clear that the Indians were violent warlike, cannibalistic, imperialistic, and slavers, who practiced human sacrifice and had little regard for others. It did not require White Europeans to introduce them to sin and evil. No serious student of human nature and history ever believed so, so we are told to believe such lies and myths in our history classes. Nor were the Indians uniquely “in tune” with Nature. The Mayans, e.g., failed because they overbuilt beyond their water capacity, and engaged in constant warfare, including over resources. Indians in Mexico and Central America, in Peru, and in North America likewise were warlike, had slaves, and some were cannibalistic. They regularly practiced warfare as a way of life, including scalping, torture, rape, and the murder of men, women, and children (as noted in The Declaration of Independence). This was not caused by Europeans. The Comanche and Apache long practiced these skills on other Indians, before transferring them to Mexicans and Americans. Any serious student of American Indians becomes aware of their constant warfare. Once the Europeans arrived, the Indians sought alliances with the Europeans against each other, too often (from their point of view) choosing the losing side: the French, the British, the Confederates, and suffering the fate of losers in history.
Other original sources:
The Journals of Columbus.
The Biography of Columbus (by his son).
The Destruction of the Indies, by Bartolome de las Casas.
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Anon
5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the only proper eye witness account ever written of these events
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 20, 2022
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This is as good as it gets for anyone interested in the conquest , this is like sitting down with a someone who was there, his account although not entirely impartial is far closer to the truth than Cortez’ self serving letters and his recollections of actual battles are mesmerising. There isn’t any better account although Hugh Thomas book the conquest of Mexico probably provides a more rounded picture
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Michael Sommer
5.0 out of 5 stars Conquest of New Spain
Reviewed in France on March 4, 2018
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Fast delivery service. Excellent book. History is tricky bizz. Easy today, (TOO EASY) to look back with pol. cor. and find fault. Result- History often suffers for TRUE perspective of the period. THIS book is a straight-forwards, honest testament by a participant under Cortez, during his conquest. As such, an ordinary soldier, he presents an honest take as he experienced it. Invaluable in understanding this point of history of the age of the discovery, exploration, and conquest of empire in the Americas!
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars very beaityful
Reviewed in India on April 3, 2018
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bery beautyful
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BA
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on August 11, 2015
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This is an unbelievable read. In this case, the truth is much stranger than fiction!
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David A Palmer
5.0 out of 5 stars A must for Aztec affectionados
Reviewed in Australia on April 22, 2015
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If you are a serious student of Aztec history and culture Bernal Diaz epic story of New Spain is simply a must. Diaz, a simple sergeant and survivor of no less than three expeditions to Mexico is unlike most of his contemporaries literate. His book is a guide for academics and laymen interested in this topic and while I have read several books on the subject all in one way or another refer back to Diaz. Diaz was in his 70's around 1545 when he started penning his adventures. Sometimes he is a little naïve, sometimes he blows his own horn a little too loudly, and sometimes he forgets or misplaces names of places and peoples but in the end there is little to fault especially when you consider Diaz was deaf and loosing his eyesight at the time of writing. Even today his is a voice that blows a fresh breeze through the dark and dank corridors of time. I found The Conquest, an easy read and one difficult to put down. For history buffs focusing on the life and times of the Aztecs I cannot recommend this book enough.
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