I read this book for a Colonization/ Decolonization class I am taking, I learned so much. I thoroughly enjoyed the attention and consideration that this book gives to the Native account of the colonization of Mexico, as opposed to the Spanish recounting we hear most often. This is a perspective that is unfortunately so scarce and so frequently forgotten. It almost always disappears from our history classes, despite how crucial and painful these accounts are. This language is stringent and does not soften the blow of this violence at all.

This is the part of history they will never teach us. Anyone interested in learning about colonization this way (not as much about decolonization/how we move forward, but we have to start somewhere) should definitely read this.

This is extraordinary. Also, interesting, curious, and at times heartwrenching. The most striking thing is actually two things:

1) That these records are so incomplete is a testament to how much was lost as a result of the conquest and the intervening centuries.

2) Just how much is gained by us to see and read what is there. This is like the ultimate time capsule and it shows you that the Nahuas are built of some stern stuff. They are still here, after all that went down.

This is both a quick read and a lengthy read. If you just want a window into the Mexica world, then this book can provide some of that. However, if you so choose, this book can be the start of a serious academic sojourn.

An INCREDIBLE BOOK. As an indigenous Mexican I thought there were no records of the account from my people, this was life-changing. History has been so white-washed and sanitized. It was refreshing to read the direct accounts from indigenous folks who were victims of Spanish colonization, although enraging at times. It made me feel very connected to my ancestors. I’m so grateful for this book.

En la escuela nos enseñaron año tras año la historia de la invasión y conquista de México, pero vista desde el punto de vista de los vencedores. Miguel León Portilla nos trae la visión de los vencidos, de los pueblos que quedaron aplastados bajo el yugo de los conquistadores. A través de relatos, poemas y cantares podemos sentir la sorpresa, el dolor y la tristeza de un grupo de pueblos que perdieron no solo a sus familias, amigos y vecinos, sino la forma entera de ver el mundo y que le daba sentido a sus vidas. Es un libro desgarrador, pero esencial para entender no solo un hecho histórico, sino lo que dio sentido a mucho de lo que significa ser mexicano.

I am not an expert in pre-colonial or Latin American history, but I do consider myself to be well educated on the scope of the bibliography of human history. I was, therefore, profoundly surprised to discover this text, which I had never remotely heard of before, but which offers one of the most singular and dramatic pre-history narrative accounts of first contact I've ever read. Truly this should be considered one of the foundational documents for the whole field of history because of its unique perspective and scope, and yet not once during my (expensive) college education in History did I hear anything about the existence of a historical account written in native language about the arrival of Europeans in America.

In many ways this reminds me of Herodotus' "Histories," being that it is comprised of accounts, written down by natives at the behest of interested interviewers, within a generation of the actual events surrounding the fall of Tenochtitlan. Similar to the "Histories," then, it represents not so much the first "history" text as it does the first "oral history" text of the New World - that is, a living document colored by the perspectives, hindsight, and political considerations of those interviewed. Nonetheless the documents are peerless in what they represent - actual, non-European perspectives on what is surely one of the most pivotal moments in human history. And we never once spoke about this in four years (though we read Herodotus about a hundred times).

Reading this, it strikes me how heavily the field concerning itself with European colonization of the Americas has been colored by the techno-cultural interpretations of those conquests popularized in "1491" and "Guns, Germs, and Steel." Certainly, the Aztec authors of these texts recall with appropriate awe the first sightings of the Conquistador "deer," which they ride into ferocious battle; and certainly, the arrival of a devastating plague alongside the Spanish does nothing to help the Aztec cause. But before all of that, these texts paint a fascinating anthropological portrait of a culture utterly alien in orientation and organization to that of the arriving Spanish, and indeed to our own modern one. Reading this history, one realizes that the fall of the great city had less to do with horses or smallpox than it did with the decisions made by a single man - Monteczuma - who chose to welcome the Spanish as gods, then doubled down on that decision even as they acted increasingly hostile, violent, and rapacious, against the advice of his advisors and other kings. Indeed, up until his death Monteczuma was willing to suspend any amount of disbelief to peaceably submit to Cortez, long after his people and his military leaders deserted him and launched a too-late effort to exterminate the hostile invaders.

The "great man" theory of history is in little repute these days, and yet in this story one sees echoes of our present moment, as great crises highlight just how crippling it can be to have the wrong man in power at the wrong moment. At the end of the day, it's hard to imagine Diamond and Mann are wrong about the structural elements which would lead to an inevitable European takeover of the continent; and yet, one still wonders whether Monteczuma, had he been another man, might have turned Cortez into the first Custer.