CONQUISTADORES A New History of Spanish Discovery and Conquest

Actor Luis Soto excels in this new, scrupulously researched history of the Spanish discovery and conquest of the Americas, a complex story with many linguistic and listening challenges. Once treated as romantic and valorous, the Spanish conquistadores are more recently seen as rapacious and genocidal, their adventures a shameful episode in imperialist greed. Author Fernando Cervantes weighs a range of elements--religious, geopolitical, individual--for a narrative crowded with early European and Indigenous American people and place names. Soto rolls through these thickets with an ease and grace that are truly impressive, and wonderful to hear. But some listeners may get lost in a bewildering profusion of unfamiliar syllables. Still, the essence of the story is perfectly clear, and once heard, impossible to forget. D.A.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2021, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2021]