Rinke's book is highly recommended for several reasons, the most important of which is that the detailed, well-organized, jargon-free narrative rectifies the imbalance of traditional histories of the struggles between the Mexica and the invading Spanish between 1519 and 1521. This re-interpretation replaces the oversimplifications (brave Spaniards versus weak, timid savages; victorious Spaniards versus defeated Mexica), stereotypes (natives as barbarians, devil-worshipping pagans), and myths (the victory against the Chontal was won with the help of St. James) of the past. It highlights the mutual condescensions and equalities that characterized early negotiations between the forces of Hernán Cortes and Montezuma II and demonstrates that each of the adversaries, from his own perspective, was fabricating an ever-changing “new world.”
Rinke's use of sources underscores this revised story. The Native and Spanish texts are carefully presented as shaped narratives with their extant biases and their dates of composition, distinguishing between the work of eyewitnesses and those written in retrospect. Pictographic texts are given the same treatment as alphabetic records. Probanzas (narrative accounts of personal heroism and deeds constructed to impress the king and royal authorities in the hope of reaping rich rewards), for example, offer biographical information on a single person, designed to enhance and even exaggerate the participation of the subject. Rinke finds such self-portraits inconsistent and often at odds in regard to the particulars as recounted by the subject and his witnesses. This approach amounts to a historiography of the wider subject and is woven subtly into the text so as to be less ponderous and pedantic than is usual in scholarly works. Without sacrificing the authoritative bases of the work, such an easy-flowing presentation makes the narrative open to all, scholars and casual readers alike.
Another plus is Rinke's inclusion of the scholarly historiographical debates that have characterized the histories of the era. But here again, he includes details of competing narratives without overt judgments. On the topic of whether or not the Native peoples recognized the Spanish as gods, he presents the information from myriad documents to show that the Spanish were first addressed as gods, but that the elites quickly realized that they were mortal. Commoners among the Mexica and the peoples of other, especially outlying, ethnic groups took longer to accept this conclusion. Yet, many believed that the Spanish could temporarily assume divinity and the attributes of the gods; these were the so-called man-gods, made famous by Serge Gruzinski in his 1989 book Man-gods in the Mexican Highlands. Another salient controversy centers on the word “conquest,” in opposition to the newer view that the central Mexican struggles between 1519 and 1521 should be regarded as a war between states. Here Rinke justifies using the word “conquest,” a word that did not exist in the Nahuatl of the Mexica, reminding readers that words matter.
Finally, throughout the book he contextualizes the situations he discusses. He outlines the European events that influenced American actions. He reminds readers of the Caribbean experiences and the administrative struggles of the Spanish monarchy to construct a workable colonial government and the depopulation of the Taino peoples due to never-before exposure to Old World diseases, constant overwork, and horrendous ill treatment, despite crown directives to the contrary. Last, he does not overlook the contemporaneous resentments and antipathies of the Mexica tribute-paying, sacrificial-victim-providing subordinate city states that turned into needed Spanish allies. They represented up to 99 percent of the Spanish-directed fighting force at the siege of Tenochtitlan. Nor does Rinke ignore the dissension within both camps as to tactics and priorities.
Overall, Rinke provides an epic reinterpretation of the multiethnic struggles that began the gradual process of turning Native America into a colonial Spanish kingdom. As such, his work could be a welcome addition to upper division and graduate courses on the ethnohistory of Mexico or the Americas, in general.
