I spent eight hours this week trying to publish this book with a cover featuring an Aztec codex painting, and after three templates and three pieces of art were rejected for cryptic reasons, I settled for forest green and finally gave up attempting to market this little known tale of the conquistadors. There are, however, four detailed Aztec codex painting besmirching the interior.

The tale of Bernal Diaz’ experience as a junior officer of three successive expeditions into the frightfully human unknown continues, with the account of Juan de Grijalva’s discovery of the Mexican Empire. While Bernal and the men obviously loved the brave and forthright Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, who died of his wounds after the expedition to the Yucatan, and later showed an awed reverence for the world-breaking figure of Hernan Cortez, every episode in Bernal’s account of the expedition that brought the Mexico of Montezuma into contact with the ruthlessly cunning mind of Cortez, gives the reader the sense that the man referred to as ‘Our Captain,’ ‘The General’ and ‘Our Commander’ was a soldier’s soldier—a man as brave as his slain predecessor, who cared about his men more than gain, a man a terrified soldier could count on when the arrows began to fly.