“Cortes: The Great Adventurer and the Fate of Aztec Mexico”, by Richard Lee Marks

347 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., ISBN-13: 978-0679406099

Hernan Cortes – the quintessential conquistador, who in his conquest of Mexico set the pattern for Spanish expansion in the New World – was a puny, sickly baby and a dropout law student who, in Richard Lee Marks’ vivid biography, enjoyed a long, carousing youth that lasted well into his 30’s. As captain of Spain's expeditionary force to subjugate the Aztec empire, this gadabout transformed himself into a resolute, ambitious adventurer, and in this book a full-fleshed view of Cortes and a perception of the epic clash of Christian and Aztec cultures that is deeply sympathetic to both sides.

Born of good blood and small means in 1485, Cortes grew up in that heady time when Spain was celebrating its liberation from the Moors and its discovery of America. First studying law at Salamanca, then lustily pursuing the pleasures of youth on the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba, he at last finagled for himself the captaincy of an expedition sent to colonize the newly discovered mainland of Mexico. The Aztec civilization he encountered there was the product of millennia of human evolution in utter isolation, and to the Europeans it seemed both glorious in its flamboyance and shocking in its rites of human sacrifice and cannibalism. But both Cortes and the Aztec emperor, Montezuma, saw potential benefits in peaceful accommodation. A six-month period of peace-seeking ended when the greed of other Spaniards pursued Cortes and when the frustration of the proud Aztecs erupted. Caught between these two forces, Cortes and his men were nearly annihilated, yet a year later they won a more drastic and tragic victory than they desired. But powerful men in Spain and Cuba, hungry for Mexico’s gold and silver and envious of the conquistador’s fame, tried to topple Cortes. Intrigues surrounded and frustrated him, a man torn between the New World and the Old, and at the end of his life, he remained unconsoled for the glory he and Montezuma had lost.

Tapping firsthand accounts by Indians and Spaniards as well as historical chronicles, Marks disputes the conventional notion that Aztec emperor Montezuma was terrified by a prophecy that his rule was coming to an end – a view promulgated by accommodating Aztec priests who testified to Franciscans after the conquest. It’s more likely, claims Marks, that Montezuma saw himself in a trial partnership with Cortes and his men and was happy to regard them as descendants of Quetzalcoatl, the bearded white god and quasi-historical Toltec chief. Instead of the image of Cortes as a ruthless, bloodthirsty conqueror, Marks portrays a stubborn man who tried to succeed by guile rather than by armed combat, and who, by imposing Catholic ritual and Spanish law, ushered in 300 years of stability and peace in Mexico.

Here, then, is the complete Hernan Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, a man of explosive vitality, of passion, of principle, of piety, of treachery, of humor in the face of death; Cortes the converter of the heathen; Cortes the conniver; Cortes the man in full.

“Great Harry: The Extravagant Life of Henry VIII”, by Carolly Erickson

428 pages, Summit Books, ISBN-13: 978-0671400170

Great Harry: The Extravagant Life of Henry VIII is as thorough a book on Hal the Eighth as you're likely to come across. In her Preface, Dr. Erickson declares that her principal aim is “the retelling of Henry’s personal story…a life of a man rather than a life of a King”. Her principal method is to construct from the Calendars of Spanish, Venetian and Milanese state papers, and the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, “a composite image of the King from these slivers of his reality”. By this method I learned a great deal about his very young life that is rarely mentioned in other biographies, such as how his father (Henry VII) kept him a virtual prisoner by not allowing anyone to be near Henry without his knowledge. By the age of 13 he is being instructed in government (how much influence does this have over the rearing of Henry’s own son and heir, Edward?)

Henry VIII is a fascinating character who cannot be easily pigeonholed, but in Erickson’s work, he remains unexamined and, therefore, lifeless. Dr. Erickson, with over four hundred years between her and the libel lawyers and every private paper at her disposal, could have afforded to be bolder in her work; instead, we have statements of the obvious – “Each servant knew exactly where his or her duties began and ended, and if those limits were not observed, conflicts arose” – or pieces of vapidness – “The torch-lit presence chamber of Hampton Court had never been more resplendently decked than on the night of January 2 1527”. At best, Dr. Erickson seems to know exactly the kind of minor details we in the 21^st Century find most interesting. For instance, From the 1530s onwards the wardrobe accounts show payments to tailors for letting out the King’s doublets and jackets, and we learn that his amazing increase in weight took place, in effect, within five years: in 1536 (when Henry was 45), his chest was 45 inches and his waist 37, measurements only a little larger than those he had at the age of 33, but by 1541 his chest had grown to 57 inches and his waist to 54. Henry should have lain off the ding-dongs.

One excellent passage describes the unlooked-for side-effect of Henry’s policy of killing off the great and nobly born all around him was the catastrophic dwindling of the ranks of the Knights of the Garter. It was really very irritating for the King, who had a particular attachment to St. George’s Day (from which he calculated his years on the throne and on which he celebrated his royal birthday) that by 1540 the annual assembly was a miserable affair, with the ghosts of the so many slaughtered knights hovering in the shadows. Sadly – and rather surprisingly for a female author – very little is mentioned about his wives who must have been strong motivators in his life. They are alluded to but little is said of them.

There is nice portrait of Catherine Parr, the only of Henry’s Queens to outlive him (in her company, wrote a contemporary, “every day was a Sunday”); Charles Brandon is the subject of a further good character sketch, and his importance in the reign is understood; the tarnishing of Whitehall towards the end of the reign is well conveyed…and with that, the King’s life draws to its close, and the book is over. There is no conclusion, and it remains sad to see such erudition and enthusiasm going to waste.

“Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution”, by Simon Schama

948 pages, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., ISBN-13: 978-0394559483

Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution is a truly wonderful example of narrative historical writing, a “tremendous performance” to borrow a favorite expression of Simon Schama. The author prefers a more old-fashioned interpretation of the French revolution, which presents the revolution as a drama and focuses on the characters that determine the unravelling of the plot. This choice provides the book with all of the most memorable stories – such as the royal family’s tragically feckless flight from Paris in 1791 – that make it such a delightful read. It is a liberating experience to find a general historical survey that does away with the conventional, stultifying analytical distinctions between economic, social and political factors. Instead, the reader can interact directly (as well as chronologically, which makes it easy to dip in and out of) with the actors and the events without having to navigate around tedious discussions of causal significance or complex arguments with other historians.

One gets to know with almost casual familiarity the important personages in the ancien régime, including those working behind the scene; regardless of what you have been led to believe, the earliest revolutionaries were not bourgeoisie, but nobility and high clergy, many of them functionaries in the old regime. Intoxicated by idealism and Rousseau’s sublime concepts of virtue, reason, equality, etc., they had set out to correct real or perceived iniquities in France. Louis XVI’s ministers saw the dangers lurking ahead, but seemed impotent to effectively protect the monarchy and solve the problems afflicting France, particularly the looming, serious financial problems and the threat of national bankruptcy. Nevertheless, these old regime functionaries, for the first time, are seen by the author as people of flesh and blood, although with all the frailties of ordinary men when all too often in times of crises – unlike other books in which they are portrayed almost anonymously as faceless aristocrats imbued not in human virtue, but only suffused of arrogance and other vices of idle and luxuriant living.

This book argues persuasively that the old regime was of itself undergoing changes of modernity in trade, technology, and laissez faire capitalism influenced by the teachings of the physiocrats, and these changes, rather than being openly welcomed by the people because of the advent of greater economic freedom, were actually decried and resented because these changes brought them insecurity and incertitude. The common people wanted cheap bread and regimentation whereas the lesser nobility wanted to hold onto the only thing left to them – their titles of nobility and what remained of their ancient land privileges, poor as most of them had become. It wasn't the lesser nobility or the bourgeoisie who led in the revolution.

From the outset of the revolution, for the most part, the liberal elite coming from the upper crust of the high nobility and clergy pushed for progressive change from above (operating in the voice of Mirabeau, Siéyès, Tallyrand, etc.) leading, whereas the poor and displaced persons militated from below. The destructive winter of 1788-1789 had forced the destitute and other disaffected elements of society to tread in the path of the revolution. The bitter harvest of 1787, the scarcities that followed, and the concomitant high prices for grain, bread, and other commodities did not help the looming economic and financial crisis. Mr. Schama certainly provides good evidence and persuasive arguments that those men of the nobility and clergy who were making war against their own classes set the revolution in motion - a tumbling, violent cascade that later they were unable to control.

One must visualize the French Revolution from its inception in 1789 to the end of the Terror on 9 Thermidor as a speeding log moving from left to right representing first the alleged enemies of the people, the aristocrats, the refractory priests, then the constitutional monarchists and foreigners, then the Feuillants, Girondins, Dantonists (and the Cordeliers), Hébertists, even more moderate or inconvenient Jacobins, and finally the Robespierrists - devoured by their own revolution. This log is ever being mounted by fresh radicals on the left while it continuously moves and is turned into lumber on the right by the circular saw of the revolution. (Only the Hébertists were out of sequence in the political spectrum only because the dictatorship of Robespierre outflanked them in the struggle for power.)

But it is the skill with which Schama recounts events like the fall of the Bastille that makes this book unique and easily the most enjoyable modern history of the revolution in English. The embellishing vocabulary (readers are advised to have a dictionary to hand), the recurring motifs (the revolutionary obsession with heads, whether on pikes or as busts) and the vivid build-up of tension are the true strengths of this so-called chronicle. It is perfect for the novice reader and the enlightened amateur alike. Citizens demands re-reading for the richness of its description to be fully appreciated, especially its masterful reconstruction of the fascinating and sometimes disturbing culture of the old regime, which is probably the most accessible that exists. The only disappointment is that it ends with Thermidor, in 1794. After 800 pages, one is still hoping for more, which is the highest recommendation possible for this genre of historical writing.