Cortes: The Life of the Conqueror was written by Cortes' assistant, chaplain, and
             secretary, Francisco Lopez de Gomara. The text, an epic written in a courtly style that
             tends to simultaneously enumerate and generalize the presented accomplishments,
             follows the life of Hernan Cortes, briefly touching on his early life and spending the
             majority of its pages detailing the explorer's various conquests in Mexico. The author,
             since he was a companion, advisor, and secretary to Cortes, and was also a secular priest,
             can be said to be biased towards the glorification of his subject, with whom he was allied,
             and against the native inhabitants, in his vehement disavowal of the indigenous
             population's culture and society. His point of view is one of unrestrained admiration
             mixed with the sureness that Cortes' every action was inspired by the greater good of
             Christianizing the new land. The sources used by Gomara can be assumed to be a
             combination of direct reports from Cortes, recollections, reconstructions of events of
             which he was not a direct observer, and letters and receipts. In my opinion, the book is a
             formidable historical document that goes into great detail, but is also a presentation of a
             historical point of view that sees the unitizing force of a Christian God to be its ultimate
             goal, and thus, though it may list physiological and architectural descriptions of non-
             Christian cultures, it otherwise serves no other purpose than to disparage them, while
             assuring the reader that the actions of its heroic protagonist were universally just.
             Nonetheless, the history is very readable, is at times humorous, and does not shy away
             from the elaborate presentation of detail often found in epic poetry, of which it reminded
             Gomara describes Cortes' youth very briefly, stating that he was an energetic
             child who sought wealth and glory by traveling to the ...