Conquest: Montezuma, Cortés, and the Fall of Old Mexico was published by Simon & Schuster in 1993 (published in the UK as The Conquest of Mexico), and it is Thomas’s most ambitious historical narrative — a detailed reconstruction of the events of 1519–1521 that treats the fall of the Aztec empire not as an inevitable triumph of European technology but as a contingent drama whose outcome was never certain.
Thomas devotes equal attention to both civilizations. His account of Aztec society — its religion, politics, economy, and military organization — is drawn from the surviving Nahua codices and colonial-era records as well as from the archaeological evidence, and he treats the Mexica as rational actors within their own cultural framework rather than as exotic savages awaiting European enlightenment. Montezuma’s decisions — including his famous hesitation in the face of the Spanish advance — are analyzed as political calculations rather than superstitious paralysis.
The Spanish side is treated with equal complexity: Cortés emerges as a man of extraordinary ability and ruthlessness, but also as someone operating within constraints (the enmity of the governor of Cuba, the unreliability of his own men, the logistical nightmares of campaigning in unknown territory) that make his achievement genuinely remarkable regardless of one’s moral judgment of it.
The book’s scale is enormous — over 800 pages — and Thomas fills every page with narrative detail: conversations, landscapes, military tactics, political maneuvering, and the texture of daily life on both sides of the conflict.
Collecting Conquest
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1993): Cloth binding, dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition in dust jacket: $25–$60
- Without jacket: $8–$20
- First UK edition (Hutchinson): $20–$50