to Cortés on this date in 1521.
Historian Hugh Thomas recently published Rivers of Gold: The Rise of the Spanish Empire, from Columbus to Magellan. The book was reviewed by Paul Kennedy in The New York Times.
”Rivers of Gold” takes just about 700 pages to describe only the first 30 years of the Spanish conquests, from Columbus’s first voyage and return in 1492-93 to Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe in 1519-22. It is an old-fashioned, almost self-indulgent narrative, and thus rich in its descriptions of characters, events and landscapes (it is also admirably illustrated). …
[Rivers of Gold] stands on its own firm historical ground as a grand and sweeping account of the world’s transformation half a millennium ago. But to those who enjoy analogies, it can equally serve as a memorial about empire and about imperial ambition.