Prescotts Conquest of Mexico

May its the history romantic inside of me, but I thoroughly enjoyed Prescott's Conquest of Mexico. Yes, I know that it is completely wrong in how it was written, but you can really get a sense of the 19th century industrial WASP'iness from Bill Prescott.  With lines such as when describing Cortez ancestry saying his "royal geology was not found out till Cortes had acquired a name which would confer distinction on any decent..."  This is a fantastic way of saying it didn't matter until someone else cared about who he or who his family was. Prescott's work oozes with a certain level of superiority. The description of Roman Catholicism when compared to Protestant is simply fantastic. On page 113, its supposed to be a compliment, but there is a heavy sense of Boston smugness.

While I understand that looking at this work from the eyes of a 21st century historian we can somewhat judge and maybe even look down on how Prescott did his research, but he does the job of telling the story of the conquest of Mexico in a way that makes me want to learn more.  His work is extremely well written and understandable to even the most casual reader.  This should be a work that should be included in any historiography class or even a Latin American history course.