CONQUISTADORS

Listening to John Telfer narrate this superbly detailed history and travelogue, one hears two conflicting emotions, abject sadness and sheer awe, sometimes in the same sentence. The awe comes with the author’s retracing of the steps of conquering Spanish “adventurers” such as Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro, who crossed unimagined rain forests, deserts, and mountains, enduring brutal physical hardships to single-handedly destroy the Aztec and Incan civilizations. The sadness comes with the knowledge that so many worlds and peoples disappeared in such a short span of time (1500-1542). Telfer delivers all the tricky-to-pronounce Spanish and South and Mesoamerican names and places with admirable ease. The listener is drawn into a world of events that still reverberate 500 years later. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2013]