The Illustrated Non Fiction Book in Michael Wood’s “Conquistadors”

Excerpts from the Paper

The Illustrated Non Fiction Book in Michael Wood's "Conquistadors"
This essay is about the illustrated non fiction book Conquistadors by Michael Wood. It is a book about Cortez and how he and his conquistadors took over South America. It begins with Cortez and Montezuma and ends with information about
Cabeza
de
Vaca
. It includes first hand accounts of the group’s foray into South America.
Much of this book is dramatic in feel. In fact, parts of this book that includes attractive travel writing by Wood that does not seem to really teach me anything about Cortez or the conquistadors. For example “As we prepared to go, sunlight flooded the
vally
, the sound of brass bands echoed around the
peacks
, and a spindrift of snow floated along the...

..... people who hate history. People who hate history, if they are going to have to study history, will just have to lump it and study history.
If anything, it seems as though this book could have been much better. The author’s bratty tone could be improved with a serious editor. Visually it is a wonderful item, and it does contain a lot of information. The writing tries to hard to be chummy and that could be toned down with some guidance from a serious editor who could just take out rotten words like “bemused” – or if that could be substantiated, well then that would be fine. However, as it stands, this book is overall bad in every way except that it is a pretty thing.
Bibliography
Wood, Michael. Conquistadors. Berkley: California Press, 2000.