Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain by David M. Carballo, and: Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan by Stefan Rinke (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain by David M. Carballo, and: Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan by Stefan Rinke
• Carlos Macías Prieto (bio)

Collision of Worlds: A Deep History of the Fall of Aztec Mexico and the Forging of New Spain
david m. carballo
Oxford University Press, 2020
352 pp. Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan
stefan rinke
Oxford University Press, 2023 (trans. from German, 2019)
316 pp.

Five hundred years after Spanish colonizers attacked the Aztec capital, Mexico-Tenochtitlan, scholars continue to debate the cataclysmic [End Page 490] event and its significance. David M. Carballo's Collision of Worlds and Stefan Rinke's Conquistadors and Aztecs grapple with the history of the invasion and conquest of Mesoamerica—complicating our understanding of these events by taking different yet complementary approaches. Collision of Worlds is unique in its use of the archaeological record to highlight the hybrid dimensions of two regions—Mesoamerica and the Iberian Peninsula—over many centuries, whereas Conquistadors and Aztecs (initially published in German as Conquistadoren und Azteken: Cortés und die Eroberung Mexikos) relies on both written and pictorial sources written by European and Indigenous writers to provide a nuanced explanation for "the fall of Tenochtitlan."

Through archaeological evidence, Collision of Worlds explores "the comparative cultural developments of early Mesoamerica and Iberia and the material manifestations of their entanglement in the focal period of encounter, conquest, colonialism, and Native resilience" (11). Carballo's compelling and innovative approach to the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica—using both archaeology and history—reveals that the history and culture of (colonial) New Spain is rooted in the "deep" histories of Mesoamerica and the Iberian Peninsula millennia before the initial encounter. Carballo borrows from archaeology the term deep history—a term that, as he explains, refers to the "layers of occupation" that span "millennia of cultural, technological, political, and religious development" (5). In taking a "deep" historical approach, Carballo traces the ancient histories of both the Iberian Peninsula and Mesoamerica to show how two ancient civilizations "collided" to form what became (colonial) New Spain.

Carballo convincingly argues that a more accurate understanding of the invasion and occupation of the Americas requires mixing lines of evidence and methods to study Iberia and Mesoamerica. For instance, he turns to nontextual materials to complement written narratives, in one case using archaeological evidence from the Zultepec-Tecoaque excavation site to illustrate Mexica resistance to the Spanish onslaught (215). At the same time, Carballo highlights the problems inherent in written sources, referring to biases in the letters of Hernan Cortés to King Charles V, the micropatriotism and biases of Indigenous chroniclers, and the challenge of retrospective accounts written by chroniclers who were not eyewitnesses to the events. [End Page 491]

The first half of the book analyzes the parallel histories of Iberia and Mesoamerica, from the second millennium BCE to the end of the fifteenth century, providing the reader with a foundation for understanding the conquest as a mutual transformative encounter (albeit one that resulted in the violent dispossession of Indigenous peoples). For example, Carballo considers the legacy of the Teotihuacan and Tula for the Aztecs alongside that of the Phoenicians, Romans, and Arabs for Iberians of the fifteenth century. He observes that the legacies of these cultures can be found in the remnants of a Roman temple in a Spanish church as well as the remains of a pre-Hispanic temple in a church in Cholula, Mexico. By the fifteenth century, writes Carballo, both the Aztec and Spanish empires were expanding as well as experiencing concurrent developments in technology, religion, and philosophy (e.g., the emergence of urban settlements).

The last half of the book begins with the Spanish exploration and invasion of the Gulf Coast of today's southeastern Mexico, incorporating analysis of textual sources (e.g., the Florentine Codex) alongside archaeological findings (e.g., the remains of Cortés's sunken ships). Carballo also relies on textual and archaeological evidence to narrate the history of the early conflicts and alliances between Spanish conquistadors and Mesoamerican peoples. For instance, he observes...