• Examines the world of the invaders and the invaded and successive human efforts to control the Western hemisphere.
• Explores the civilizations that the Spanish encountered in the New World as well as looking at the genesis of the conquistador culture in the Iberian, Atlantic, and early Caribbean world.
• Looks at the consequence of these conquests on the Americas, including subsequent colonial rule.

 
With startling speed, Spanish conquistadors invaded hundreds of Native American kingdoms, took over the mighty empires of the Aztecs and Incas, and initiated an unprecedented redistribution of the world's resources and balance of power. They changed the course of history, but the myth they established was even stranger than their real achievements. This Very Short Introduction deploys the latest scholarship to shatter and replace the traditional narrative. Chapters explore New World civilizations prior to the invasions, the genesis of conquistador culture on both sides of the Atlantic, the roles black Africans and Native Americans played and the consequences of the invasions. The book reveals who the conquistadors were and what made their adventures possible.