One more, foolish to forget it as I'm reading it now: The History of the Conquest of Peru by William H. Prescott; I also have his History of the Conquest of Mexico. These were written IIRC in the 1840s, but Prescott is truly a professional historian using scrupulous research in the Spanish colonial archives. He also has a very keen critical eye and a very eloquent literary style, precise but very, very engaging -- wonderful. It has been over 40 years since I last read these and I'm glad I found them again on Kindle.
Of principal interest, to me, though is his thorough and careful description of the ancient Andean and Mexican civilizations -- polity, economy, arts, transport, military and religious as well as architectural and urban--that, with the Maya and Olmecs and others that only recently have been found by archeologists were in many respects bigger and better than European cultures of the time. He makes much of conquistadors' amazement at their size, sophistication, and beauty -- not that material civilization is the ultimate criterion of human development (the Sioux or Masaai were hardly savages). -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfguLXXDD1Ys1UfuM89xuCfXqp_vq1WjNLSbP7voYPDRx0g%40mail.gmail.com.
