Corte´s and Montezuma (edit title)

Shelfari edited the description of Corte´s and Montezuma Monday, August 3 2009.

• The convergence of Corts and Montezuma is the most emblematic event in the birth of what would come to be called "America." Landing on the Mexican coast on Good Friday, 1519, Hernn Corts felt himself the bearer of a divine burden to conquer and convert the first advanced civilization Europeans had yet encountered in the West. For Montezuma, leader of the Mexicans, April 21,1519 (known in their sophisticated astronomical system as 9 Wind Day) was the precise date of a dire prophesy: the return of Quetzalcoatl, a fearsome god predicted to arrive by ship, from the East, with light skin, a black beard, robed in black--exactly as Corts would. The ensuing drama is described by eminent historian Maurice Collis in a style that is equal parts story and scholarship. Though its consequences have been treated by writers as diverse as D.H. Lawrence and Charles Olson, never before have the facts of this event been rendered with such extraordinary clarity and elegance.

Shelfari edited the contributors of Corte´s and Montezuma Thursday, July 30 2009.

• Added a contributor: Maurice Collis: (Primary Author)

Shelfari edited the first sentence of Corte´s and Montezuma Friday, July 17 2009.

• The Magnificent Lord Cristobal Colon (whom we always call Christopher Columbus) sighted Watling Island in the Bahamas on 11th October 1492.