What is it about?

Myers approaches the legacy of the Spanish conquest of Mexico from an innovative, multidisciplinary perspective. She retraces the physical route that Hernán Cortés took from Veracruz to Mexico City (Tenochtitlán), and interviews people along the way about their family histories, historical memories, and relationship to the story of the conquest.

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Why is it important?

With this series of oral histories, in combination with visual analysis of pre-Columbian, colonial-era, and moden-day art forms, Myers aims to show how "Mexicans of all walks of life can shed new light on how the reality and perception of the Spanish conquest inform current traditions, identities, and debates about Mexico’s future," and to communicate these ideas to an English-speaking audience in the US.

Perspectives

I really enjoyed reading the book and hearing the stories of such a wide variety of people, as narrated in their own words.

Allison Bigelow
University of Virginia

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: In the Shadow of Cortés: Conversations along the Route of Conquest by Kathleen Ann Myers, Hispanófila, January 2016, Project Muse,
DOI: 10.1353/hsf.2016.0018.
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Contributors

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