An engaging revisionist exploration of “one of human history’s great lies.”
A methodical deconstruction of the myths surrounding Hernando Cortés’ “Mexican conquest” and the surrender of Montezuma.
Restall’s (Latin American History/Pennsylvania State Univ.; The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan, 2013, etc.) main point is that the more you shift the point of view, the more is revealed. The traditional story fits the bill for all Western universal narratives in which civilizations are victorious over barbarism, thereby justifying invasion. The same goes for the usual claims that the natives were cannibals and sodomists, all used to make the victors look good. The story of Cortés landing in Mexico, being treated as a god, and accepting Montezuma’s “surrender” to the great king of Spain is fiction. The author looks at the small force Cortés brought from Cuba to explore the coastline and sees an outnumbered group, fighting among themselves and overstepping their orders. He also reminds us of the “black legend” of the conquistadors as vicious, bloodthirsty murderers and slavers. The myth of Cortés is based almost entirely on his second letter (the first is lost) to the Spanish king in which his claims are nothing but fabrications. At the time of writing, he and his men were guests of Montezuma and nowhere near subduing this highly civilized people. It is the case of the victor writing the history, and Cortés’ letter was the basis for it. Even more interesting is Restall’s view of emperor Montezuma, whom history has called a coward. The author makes an excellent case for a strong leader of a civilization of tens of thousands in a city with gardens, palaces, and even a zoo at least a century before any European court. There was no need for him to fear the few hundred Spanish, and he was most likely toying with them, unaware of the cruel treachery that would result. Throughout, Restall’s assertions are well-supported and difficult to refute, and the timeline that opens the book is particularly helpful.
An engaging revisionist exploration of “one of human history’s great lies.”Pub Date: Jan. 30, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-242726-7
Page Count: 560
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorkerstaff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
For Howard Zinn, long-time civil rights and anti-war activist, history and ideology have a lot in common. Since he thinks that everything is in someone's interest, the historian—Zinn posits—has to figure out whose interests he or she is defining/defending/reconstructing (hence one of his previous books, The Politics of History). Zinn has no doubts about where he stands in this "people's history": "it is a history disrespectful of governments and respectful of people's movements of resistance." So what we get here, instead of the usual survey of wars, presidents, and institutions, is a survey of the usual rebellions, strikes, and protest movements. Zinn starts out by depicting the arrival of Columbus in North America from the standpoint of the Indians (which amounts to their standpoint as constructed from the observations of the Europeans); and, after easily establishing the cultural disharmony that ensued, he goes on to the importation of slaves into the colonies. Add the laborers and indentured servants that followed, plus women and later immigrants, and you have Zinn's amorphous constituency. To hear Zinn tell it, all anyone did in America at any time was to oppress or be oppressed; and so he obscures as much as his hated mainstream historical foes do—only in Zinn's case there is that absurd presumption that virtually everything that came to pass was the work of ruling-class planning: this amounts to one great indictment for conspiracy. Despite surface similarities, this is not a social history, since we get no sense of the fabric of life. Instead of negating the one-sided histories he detests, Zinn has merely reversed the image; the distortion remains.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1979
ISBN: 0061965588
Page Count: 772
Publisher: Harper & Row
Review Posted Online: May 26, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1979
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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