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neoteotihuacan's reviews
143 reviews
The Conquistadores: The Untold History of Spanish Discovery and Empire by Fernando Cervantes
dark
slow-paced
2.0
Oh boy. Where to start with this one. Let's start with the good stuff.
This book expounds on the concept of malicious compliance, called 'obedezco pero no cumplo,' that was running in the veins of Iberian society in the 15th and 16th centuries. It helps to explain why the king, for example, would issue an order and no one would obey it in the colonies, because, presumably, the sovereign's order or new law didn't jive with the context on the ground. 'Obedezco pero no cumplo,' 'I obey but do not comply,' was used to justify all manner of novel, violent cruelties and political malfeasance. It helps to explain the mindset of medieval explorers.
Another element that was nice is the inclusion of newly recovered documents. For example, Christopher Columbus was arrested on charges during his governorship of Hispaniola, due to the infighting of conquistadores and the immense cruelty Columbus displayed towards indigenous peoples, behavior that shocked even militantly Catholic Spain. New information reveals the content of those legal proceedings in Spain, which Cervantes, the author, incorporates into his book.
The biggest element I liked about the book was an entire chapter explaining how the various Catholic orders grafted themselves onto Native sacred spaces, holidays, and ceremonies. They did this because the Catholic mindset at the time, which played out in the church through various philosophical debates, was that there were other gods, other sacred spaces, other magic powers in the world. They wouldn't negate the sacred location and power of, say, a Mexica temple, even if they condemned a Mexica god as a demon or a devil. And so, they would simply turn that Mexica temple into a Catholic church, hoping to co-opt the sacred space for Christian purposes. There was a whole set of philosophies and policies that encouraged this, which in part helped to build the religious and cultural syncretism we see in Latin America today. It is the reason there is a Virgin of Guadalupe, and a Día de Muertos, which is a pre-Columbian Mexica tradition into which the Catholics poured as many Christian elements as they could.
But, let's discuss what doesn't work in this book.
Certain phrasing, like 'gone native' used in the text, repeatedly, is not only politically incorrect but an indication of an ignorance about Native nations. And Cervantes for all his scholarship, doesn't seem to display much more than a cursory understanding of the cultures the Spanish invaded. Maybe he does posses that knowledge and chose not to illustrate that knowledge given the scope of the book. We can't know, because it isn't in the book. However, I find it almost egregious that anyone can talk about this subject matter and not do their due diligence on the American cultures being destroyed. Several times, the author would say something like, 'and the Natives were afraid of the guns and horses,' and then in the next sentence or paragraph talk about how those same Natives would kill or fell horses in the heat of battle. Its inconsistent and ethnocentric, the sort of thing one might see in a 19th century European scholar. And maybe that's by design...given that the book is about Conquistadores and nothing else, I suppose. It is as if Cervantes took Spanish testimony as fact. All in all, it led to a less than ideal, inconsistent reading experience. And it is a grand disservice to continue to call the Native peoples 'primitive,' as Cervantes continually alluded to in his text. It feels as if the author were relying on racist theories of stages of civilization from yesteryear, by the likes of Henry Lewis Morgan and John Wesley Powell, material long-since abandoned with good, scientific reason.
A lot of this narrative feels like 'great man' theories of history. We, for example, follow the years-long adventures of Hernando De Soto as his army of 600 soldiers trampled through US Southeast, invading nation after nation, getting along with one and murdering the citizens of another. But, as soon as De Soto dies and is dumped into the Mississippi River, Cervantes leaves the story, and the soldiers, in North America. What happened to them? Are they still there? History records lots more activities by De Soto's army, but the author deemed it adequate to focus only on one person, the leader. He does this with all of the broad strokes of conquistador activity in the book. Hell, he doesn't even mention Coronado, who made a similar invasion in the US Southwest at the same time as De Soto's invasions. Nor does he mention the explorations of the Amazon River.
Cervantes spends quite a lot of real estate discussing and perhaps justifying the wild legal strategies of conquistadores. However, he spends very little time explaining the laws and customs of the Triple Alliance, and how their legal and international customs played into the invasions. They surely did, as plenty of other experts in this subject have explained over the years. This is a great big blind spot, by my measure.
The most offending bit has to be the closing argument, in which Cervantes asks the reader to consider the good that the conquistadores brought to the world. He claims '300 years of peace and stability' from the political structures set up, through conquistador action, by the Spanish. Nothing, and I mean nothing could be further from the truth. There were constant wars, constant resistance, every decade at the frontier of Spanish invasion and inside 'pacified' areas, as well. The conquistadors were jihadists by another name, so blinded by a feverish, absolutist version of Christianity that it justified, to the Spanish, some of the most violent wars ever seen in the annals of history. They were murderers, thieves, and liars and they raped the Americas through and through. There is no good to come of that...what we have, instead, is a history we simply cannot change, even through throwback revisionism such as this book.
So, read it? I guess so. I did. But remain very skeptical. And seek out other narratives to help balance the inconsistencies of this one.
This book expounds on the concept of malicious compliance, called 'obedezco pero no cumplo,' that was running in the veins of Iberian society in the 15th and 16th centuries. It helps to explain why the king, for example, would issue an order and no one would obey it in the colonies, because, presumably, the sovereign's order or new law didn't jive with the context on the ground. 'Obedezco pero no cumplo,' 'I obey but do not comply,' was used to justify all manner of novel, violent cruelties and political malfeasance. It helps to explain the mindset of medieval explorers.
Another element that was nice is the inclusion of newly recovered documents. For example, Christopher Columbus was arrested on charges during his governorship of Hispaniola, due to the infighting of conquistadores and the immense cruelty Columbus displayed towards indigenous peoples, behavior that shocked even militantly Catholic Spain. New information reveals the content of those legal proceedings in Spain, which Cervantes, the author, incorporates into his book.
The biggest element I liked about the book was an entire chapter explaining how the various Catholic orders grafted themselves onto Native sacred spaces, holidays, and ceremonies. They did this because the Catholic mindset at the time, which played out in the church through various philosophical debates, was that there were other gods, other sacred spaces, other magic powers in the world. They wouldn't negate the sacred location and power of, say, a Mexica temple, even if they condemned a Mexica god as a demon or a devil. And so, they would simply turn that Mexica temple into a Catholic church, hoping to co-opt the sacred space for Christian purposes. There was a whole set of philosophies and policies that encouraged this, which in part helped to build the religious and cultural syncretism we see in Latin America today. It is the reason there is a Virgin of Guadalupe, and a Día de Muertos, which is a pre-Columbian Mexica tradition into which the Catholics poured as many Christian elements as they could.
But, let's discuss what doesn't work in this book.
Certain phrasing, like 'gone native' used in the text, repeatedly, is not only politically incorrect but an indication of an ignorance about Native nations. And Cervantes for all his scholarship, doesn't seem to display much more than a cursory understanding of the cultures the Spanish invaded. Maybe he does posses that knowledge and chose not to illustrate that knowledge given the scope of the book. We can't know, because it isn't in the book. However, I find it almost egregious that anyone can talk about this subject matter and not do their due diligence on the American cultures being destroyed. Several times, the author would say something like, 'and the Natives were afraid of the guns and horses,' and then in the next sentence or paragraph talk about how those same Natives would kill or fell horses in the heat of battle. Its inconsistent and ethnocentric, the sort of thing one might see in a 19th century European scholar. And maybe that's by design...given that the book is about Conquistadores and nothing else, I suppose. It is as if Cervantes took Spanish testimony as fact. All in all, it led to a less than ideal, inconsistent reading experience. And it is a grand disservice to continue to call the Native peoples 'primitive,' as Cervantes continually alluded to in his text. It feels as if the author were relying on racist theories of stages of civilization from yesteryear, by the likes of Henry Lewis Morgan and John Wesley Powell, material long-since abandoned with good, scientific reason.
A lot of this narrative feels like 'great man' theories of history. We, for example, follow the years-long adventures of Hernando De Soto as his army of 600 soldiers trampled through US Southeast, invading nation after nation, getting along with one and murdering the citizens of another. But, as soon as De Soto dies and is dumped into the Mississippi River, Cervantes leaves the story, and the soldiers, in North America. What happened to them? Are they still there? History records lots more activities by De Soto's army, but the author deemed it adequate to focus only on one person, the leader. He does this with all of the broad strokes of conquistador activity in the book. Hell, he doesn't even mention Coronado, who made a similar invasion in the US Southwest at the same time as De Soto's invasions. Nor does he mention the explorations of the Amazon River.
Cervantes spends quite a lot of real estate discussing and perhaps justifying the wild legal strategies of conquistadores. However, he spends very little time explaining the laws and customs of the Triple Alliance, and how their legal and international customs played into the invasions. They surely did, as plenty of other experts in this subject have explained over the years. This is a great big blind spot, by my measure.
The most offending bit has to be the closing argument, in which Cervantes asks the reader to consider the good that the conquistadores brought to the world. He claims '300 years of peace and stability' from the political structures set up, through conquistador action, by the Spanish. Nothing, and I mean nothing could be further from the truth. There were constant wars, constant resistance, every decade at the frontier of Spanish invasion and inside 'pacified' areas, as well. The conquistadors were jihadists by another name, so blinded by a feverish, absolutist version of Christianity that it justified, to the Spanish, some of the most violent wars ever seen in the annals of history. They were murderers, thieves, and liars and they raped the Americas through and through. There is no good to come of that...what we have, instead, is a history we simply cannot change, even through throwback revisionism such as this book.
So, read it? I guess so. I did. But remain very skeptical. And seek out other narratives to help balance the inconsistencies of this one.
Africa Is Not a Country: Notes on a Bright Continent by Dipo Faloyin
funny
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
A quick, brilliant, heartfelt summary of modern Africa by a son of Africa. Read it.
The Invention of Nature: Alexander Von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf
adventurous
hopeful
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
This book is a fun, great read, diving into the life of a man who was the absolute spirit of an age. Alexander Von Humboldt's insatiable curiosity defined science in an era of revolutions in politics and discovery.
Humboldt was THE scientist of his times and of our times, too, really. You can be forgiven, as an English-speaker, for not having heard of him. There was a purge of all things German during the second World War and Humboldt's name and his deeds fell victim to that purge. But his name is all over everything - Humboldt Penguin, the Humboldt Current, Humboldt Glacier, Humboldt River, Humboldt Peak...many counties, cities, towns, schools, universities, bays, waterfalls, sinkholes, state and national parks across Latin America, North America and Europe. Perhaps no one has as many statues in so many different countries.
He hung out with Thomas Jefferson, who continued to write Humboldt for advice for years after their meeting and considered him to be "the most important scientist whom I have met". He influenced Simón Bolívar, who was so inspired by Humboldt's love of South American ecosystems that Bolívar enshrined nature in his fight to free South America from the Spanish Empire. He laid the foundations for Charles Darwin, who considered Humboldt to be "greatest scientific traveller who ever lived." Darwin would never have gotten to the idea of Natural Selection without Humboldt. Edgar Allen Poe was inspired to write his final piece, 'Eureka: A Prose Poem', about ideas Humboldt championed, which predicted the Big Bang before science would properly describe it. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Hermann Von Helmotlz, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Ernst Haeckel, George Perkins Marsh and many others were inspired by him. Hell, Napoléon Bonaparte even hated him (always a good mark, in my book).
He championed the perspectives of indigenous peoples, railed against slavery, and predicted much of modern science. He formed the ideas from which the modern environmental movement would launch. He traveled the newly formed United States, dived deep into the reclusive and forbidden Spanish Empire, adventured across the Russian steppe, and climbed every single mountain he could find. And he measured everything all along the way.
Quite simply, there has been no one in science since Humboldt who loomed as large and who inspired so many people. He was a prolific writer, probably gay AF, and, a bit like a real life Bilbo Baggins, absolutely could not wait to go on his next adventure. You should read this book. The sense of wonder Humboldt carried about the world is infectious. Andrea Wulf does a fantastic job translating that wonder for you.
Humboldt was THE scientist of his times and of our times, too, really. You can be forgiven, as an English-speaker, for not having heard of him. There was a purge of all things German during the second World War and Humboldt's name and his deeds fell victim to that purge. But his name is all over everything - Humboldt Penguin, the Humboldt Current, Humboldt Glacier, Humboldt River, Humboldt Peak...many counties, cities, towns, schools, universities, bays, waterfalls, sinkholes, state and national parks across Latin America, North America and Europe. Perhaps no one has as many statues in so many different countries.
He hung out with Thomas Jefferson, who continued to write Humboldt for advice for years after their meeting and considered him to be "the most important scientist whom I have met". He influenced Simón Bolívar, who was so inspired by Humboldt's love of South American ecosystems that Bolívar enshrined nature in his fight to free South America from the Spanish Empire. He laid the foundations for Charles Darwin, who considered Humboldt to be "greatest scientific traveller who ever lived." Darwin would never have gotten to the idea of Natural Selection without Humboldt. Edgar Allen Poe was inspired to write his final piece, 'Eureka: A Prose Poem', about ideas Humboldt championed, which predicted the Big Bang before science would properly describe it. Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Hermann Von Helmotlz, Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Ernst Haeckel, George Perkins Marsh and many others were inspired by him. Hell, Napoléon Bonaparte even hated him (always a good mark, in my book).
He championed the perspectives of indigenous peoples, railed against slavery, and predicted much of modern science. He formed the ideas from which the modern environmental movement would launch. He traveled the newly formed United States, dived deep into the reclusive and forbidden Spanish Empire, adventured across the Russian steppe, and climbed every single mountain he could find. And he measured everything all along the way.
Quite simply, there has been no one in science since Humboldt who loomed as large and who inspired so many people. He was a prolific writer, probably gay AF, and, a bit like a real life Bilbo Baggins, absolutely could not wait to go on his next adventure. You should read this book. The sense of wonder Humboldt carried about the world is infectious. Andrea Wulf does a fantastic job translating that wonder for you.
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
dark
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Ursula K. Le Guin is a master of science fiction, and an anthropologist at heart, which, in my opinion, is the only way to write sci-fi. Science fiction is about humanity, after all.
And no where else will you get a full dose of Le Guin's brilliance than here with 'The Dispossessed,' a wayward chapter of the loose confederation of stories known as 'The Hainish Cycle.' Like a lot of Le Guin's work, this story buries deep into a topic that has only increased in relevance in our own time. In this story, the debate over economic systems and politics is the backdrop. Dr. Shevek, a physicist who has unlocked the key to a theory of everything, has to navigate the limitations of his moon-world, Anarres, an anarchic-communist society, and Urras, a full-on exploitative, state-heavy capitalist society from which Anarres split 200 years prior. Who gets the theory, and the power? Whose morals are correct? How does a single person decide such things? Is a reconciliation possible between to antagonistic societies?
It is a lovely story filled with rich world-building, philosophy, and characters that seem as real as the dirt. Read it.
Hugo Award for best novel.
Locus Award for best novel.
Nebula Award for best novel.
And no where else will you get a full dose of Le Guin's brilliance than here with 'The Dispossessed,' a wayward chapter of the loose confederation of stories known as 'The Hainish Cycle.' Like a lot of Le Guin's work, this story buries deep into a topic that has only increased in relevance in our own time. In this story, the debate over economic systems and politics is the backdrop. Dr. Shevek, a physicist who has unlocked the key to a theory of everything, has to navigate the limitations of his moon-world, Anarres, an anarchic-communist society, and Urras, a full-on exploitative, state-heavy capitalist society from which Anarres split 200 years prior. Who gets the theory, and the power? Whose morals are correct? How does a single person decide such things? Is a reconciliation possible between to antagonistic societies?
It is a lovely story filled with rich world-building, philosophy, and characters that seem as real as the dirt. Read it.
Hugo Award for best novel.
Locus Award for best novel.
Nebula Award for best novel.
Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275-425 by Kyle Harper
slow-paced
5.0
This book is a thoroughly research tour through the systems and functions of slavery in the late Roman Empire, a practice that was far more tragic, far more violent than previously imagined, and disturbingly all too Roman. There is much detail here, including updated economic models and re-contextualizing of familiar sources. But the great value of the book is in using updated research to re-examinations old misconceptions about the Roman Slavery system. Like, for example, the suggestion that the early Christian church had a hand in slowly eradicating slavery, which it seems it did not. Or, that slavery transitioned cleanly into a system of serfdom - instead, Roman slavery continued into the centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, evolving in a myriad of ways, balkanizing along with the many successor states to Rome, and continuing through the Islamic period and beyond.
Harper's book is worth the read if you want to understand the depths of Rome in late antiquity. Rome was a chattel slave society right down to its marrow, a scale of slavery not seen until the rise of the Atlantic Slave Trade of the 15th century. It affected every sector of the economy, every function of government, and every day of regular life. But do not assume that this style of slavery was equally blanketed across humanity in this time period...Rome stands out singularly in its enslavement of human beings.
"There was no action or belief or institution in Graeco-Roman antiquity that was not one way or the other affected by the possibility that someone involved might be a slave."
- Moses Finley
Harper's book is worth the read if you want to understand the depths of Rome in late antiquity. Rome was a chattel slave society right down to its marrow, a scale of slavery not seen until the rise of the Atlantic Slave Trade of the 15th century. It affected every sector of the economy, every function of government, and every day of regular life. But do not assume that this style of slavery was equally blanketed across humanity in this time period...Rome stands out singularly in its enslavement of human beings.
"There was no action or belief or institution in Graeco-Roman antiquity that was not one way or the other affected by the possibility that someone involved might be a slave."
- Moses Finley