The story of a man who accomplished the impossible?and the world he transformed.

With a new introduction by Fernando Cervantes.

Five hundred years ago, in 1526, Hernán Cortés became the first governor of New Spain, a polity that would not have existed were it not for his profoundly improbable conquest of the powerful Aztec Empire, which dominated the region that is now Mexico. However one evaluates his accomplishments, few people have had a greater impact on the history of the Americas than did Cortés.

In this biography, first published in 1941, Salvador de Madariaga, one of the greatest Spanish historians of the twentieth century, provides a thrilling and balanced account of Cortés's life and times. Madariaga grapples with both the Aztecs and the Spanish in the context of their times and on their own terms. He pulls no punches and is unafraid to make informed judgments. The result is a bracingly honest biography that refuses to engage in whitewashing, ritual condemnation, or hagiography.

Anyone who wishes to transcend today's highly tendentious and one-sided histories of the period in which Cortés made his mark must read this refreshingly candid classic.