Podcast
The Rest Is History
The hosts repeatedly highlighted the title as a valuable source for understanding the Spanish conquest, emphasizing that it argued the conquistadors were driven by sincere religious conviction rather than mere greed. Tom Clougherty and Dominic both praised the book for its thorough examination of Spanish religiosity and its challenge to the traditional cynical view. Their discussion conveyed strong endorsement of the work as essential reading for anyone studying the era.
Episode: 387. The Fall of the Aztecs: Prisoners of Montezum...
Fernando Cervantes's book was cited to argue that understanding the Spanish conquistadors requires seeing them as genuinely believing they were doing righteous work, not merely greedy aggressors.
One historian we've mentioned, I think once or twice, Fernando Cervantes who wrote a book called Conquistadores. He says, you will not understand anything that happens if you think the Spanish are just greedy and violent.
Episode: 384. The Fall of the Aztecs: The Adventure Begins...
The podcast mentioned a wonderful book titled Conquistadores by Mexican historian Fernando Cervantes as a source on Spanish conquest narratives.
There's a wonderful book called Conquistadores by Fernando Cervantes, who's a Mexican historian.
Episode: 308: Columbus: Death in the Caribbean (Part 3)
The hosts praised the book for its thorough examination of Spanish religiosity and the mindset of friars during the colonisation of the New World.
the book Conquistadores by Fernando Cervantes, who's a Mexican historian based in Britain, takes the Spanish religiosity really seriously and discusses how it shaped their actions in the New World.
Episode: 12 Days: Reconquest of Spain and the Old Queen of...
The hosts discussed Cervantes' book, noting it examined the Spanish conquest of the New World and challenged the view that the expeditions were driven solely by greed, emphasizing the genuine religious motivations of the conquistadors.
I read a book a year ago by a guy called Fernando Cervantes ... it's a book called Conquistadores and it's a book about what happens in the same year so basically the arrival of the Spanish in the new world.
One of the things that Cervantes really brings out in this book is he says we traditionally see the Spanish arrival in the new world as motivated purely by plunder and greed and cynicism, and that Christianity is merely a fig leaf.
He argues that the Christian motive was not a fig leaf at all; the conquistadors genuinely believed they were saving souls, and that their conversion efforts were rooted in sincere religious conviction.