Bernal Díaz del Castillo, himself a soldier under Cortes, presents a fascinatingly detailed description of the Spanish landing in Mexico in 1520, their amazement at the city, the exploitation of the natives for gold and other treasures, the expulsion and flight of the Spaniards, their regrouping and eventual capture of the Aztec capital. The Conquest of New Spain has a compelling immediacy that brings the past to life and offers a unique eyewitness view of the conquest of one of the greatest civilizations in the New World.J. M. Cohen’s clear, fluent translation is supplemented by an introduction that illuminates the life and memories of Bernal Díaz and explores changing views of the conquest, and there are also maps of the conquered territory.

    Cohen described as establishing Bernal Díaz del Castillo “among chroniclers what Daniel Defoe is among novelists”. Late in life, when Díaz del Castillo was 84 years old and living in his encomienda estates in Guatemala, he wrote The True History of the Conquest of New Spain to defend the story of the common-soldier conquistador within the histories about the Spanish conquest of Mexico. He presents his narrative as an alternative to the critical writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas, whose Indian-native histories emphasized the cruelty of the conquest, as well as the histories of the hagiographic biographers of Hernán Cortés (specifically that of Francisco López de Gómara, who Díaz del Castillo believed minimized the role of the 700 enlisted soldiers instrumental to conquering the Aztec Empire). That said, Díaz del Castillo strongly defended the actions of the conquistadors, whilst emphasising their humanity and honesty in his eyewitness narrative, which he summarised as this: "We went there to serve God, and also to get rich."The history is occasionally uncharitable about Cortés; like other professional soldiers who participated in the Conquest of New Spain, Díaz del Castillo found himself among the ruins of Tenochtitlán only slightly wealthier than when he arrived to Mexico. The land and gold compensation paid to many of the conquistadores proved a poor return for their investment of months of soldiering and fighting across Mexico and the Anahuac Valley.