This study examines how Hernán Cortés, first as the author of his Cartas de relación (1519-1526), and then as the protagonist of Francisco López de Gómara's Historia de la conquista de México (1552), defends Spain's conquest of Mexico. It analyzes how these accounts represent his speech acts, including some of his key speeches; how they allow him to define the conquest in different ways to different audiences; and how they represent him as controlling the speech acts of others, most notably those of Moctezuma.

Carman argues that these texts, in their attempt to justify the wars of conquest, do not maintain that the Spanish Empire simply possesses a "truth" over which falsehoods cannot prevail. Instead they show an understanding of the "truth" similar to that of Aristotle, who acknowledges that falsehoods can and often do prevail. The “truth,” according to these accounts, requires an artful advocate, like Cortés, who can give it the form it needs for each new audience and set of circumstances. By allowing the reader to see through Cortés’s rhetorical manipulation of others, especially of others who are so alien to the reader, these histories reinforce the moral and intellectual hierarchies that are necessary for a society to believe that it has the right or even the obligation to impose its will on others.

“This book is well written with a clear, persuasive, and interesting argument. It is a timely contribution that provides definitions for key terms in the study of rhetoric and conquest in Colonial Latin America, by focusing on the case of the textual representations of Hernán Cortés and his conquest of México.” —Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, University of Pennsylvania

“This book is a welcome addition to scholarship and a good application to the study of the figure of Cortés, created by himself and humanist historians of the sixteenth century, in particular Gómara, of the speech act analysis that John L. Austin theorizes in his How to Do Things with Words.”—Carmen Y. Hsu, Renaissance Quarterly. For the full review, see Renaissance Quarterly (2007): 563–64.

“Despite its focus on the character of Hernán Cortés, Rhetorical Conquests is a useful analysis of some of the rhetorical means employed by Francisco López de Gómara in the crafting of his most controversial, but deeply influential work. Carman's book...is in this sense part of a recent trend that seeks to revaluate the work of one of the most important humanist historians of the early colonial period.”—Andrés I. Prieto, Hispania. For the full review, see Hispania 90.4 (Dec. 2007): 703-04.

"La tesis de Carman sobre Cortés no es nueva, pero está expuesta de una forma minuciosa como no lo había sido antes.... su libro es una valiosa contribución a los estudios coloniales." —Roberto González Echevarría, Primera Revista Latinoamericana de Libros. For the full review, see PRL (June/July 2008): 26-27.

For further reviews, see

Reference and Research Book News Nov. 2006.

Glen Carman, DePaul University in Chicago, teaches language and literature. His current research focuses on Bartolomé de las Casas, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, and the sixteenth-century debates over Spain's wars of conquest.

ISBN-13: 978-1-55753-403-3; ISBN-10: 1-55753-403-9
2006. Vol. 35. viii, 250 pp. Paper $43.95

A window in Stanley Coulter Hall publicizing Carman's Rhetorical Conquests.

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