Is the West versus Islam like Montezuma versus Cortez?
In “Conquistador”, Buddy Levy offers a fascinating account of the impetuous Spanish adventurer Cortez and Montezuma, the ill-starred emperor of the Aztecs — clearly the wrong emperor at the wrong place at the wrong time. Mr. Levy has an eye for vivid detail and manages to build a compelling narrative out of this almost unbelievable story of missionary zeal, greed, cruelty and courage. By avoiding the kind of ideological posturing that usually distorts re-tellings of the conquest of the New World, Mr. Levy rightly focuses his reader’s attention on the story’s antagonists. Others had tried what Cortez wanted to do, and failed. They died in shipwrecks or were captured and sold into slavery by the Indians. Cortez, though, had the advantage of iron resolve, a good mind and an instinct for seizing the initiative in a crisis. With his handful of men, three cannon and 15 horses, he overawed the first tribes he encountered. Realizing that the gold trinkets they offered him were only a hint of
