Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America

Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America
by Paul Schneider

Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America
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Book Summary Information

Author: Paul Schneider
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2006-05-02
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.

Book Reviews of Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America

Book Review: Conquistadors for Dummies
Summary: 4 Stars

Excellent book, interesting premise -- 16th century Spaniards lost in the New World. Covers pretty much every aspect of the experience. At times reads like Conquistadors for Dummies. Although the author touches on it, overall he goes a little light on the culture of the Indians, so you never REALLY get the feeling for what the Spaniards were up against.

The author feels that the most interesting individual in the book is the slave that accompanies the 2 other lost explorers. I might agree with this but only in the context that even the slave had the heart of a conqueror. Why? is my question, a question which goes unanswered in the book.

What is most interesting to me about the whole conquistador thing is the confidence these guys had. The most interesting aspect of this book was the right turn the 3 conquerors took to trek across the continent to the Pacific to FULFILL THEIR MISSION. With 3 guys! Forget that the initial plan was to conquer a continent with 150-200 men. We're talking 3 guys here. What was it in the Spanish make-up that allowed this? The author doesn't delve into it. In fact, he comes close to lampooning it, treating the gang as an almost Pythoneque group of Don Quixotes. It's a testament to the age we live in, I believe, that such displays of self-confidence are ridiculed -- out of fear, bewilderment, guilt, I don't know. The author admits that he is most interested in the aspect of these particular conquistadors moving from conquerors to conquered. A typical 21st century view. The 3 Spaniards, slave included, apparently didn't see it that way.

Anyway, a good entertaining read, but one that misses an opportunity to address deeper issues.

Summary of Brutal Journey: The Epic Story of the First Crossing of North America

A gripping account of four explorers adrift in an unknown land and the harrowing journey that took them across North America 270 years before Lewis and Clark

One part Heart of Darkness, one part Lewis and Clark, Brutal Journey tells the story of a group of explorers who came to the new world on the heels of Cort?s; bound for glory, only four of four hundred would survive. Eight years and some five thousand miles later, three Spaniards and a black Moroccan wandered out of the wilderness to the north of the Rio Grande and into Cortes' gold-drenched Mexico.

The four survivors brought nothing back from their sojourn other than their story, but what a tale it was. They had become killers and cannibals, torturers and torture victims, slavers and enslaved. They became faith healers, arms dealers, canoe thieves, spider eaters, and finally, when there were only the four of them left in the high Texas desert, they became itinerate messiahs. They became, in other words, whatever it took to stay alive long enough to inch their way toward Mexico, the only place where they were certain they would find an outpost of the Spanish empire.

The journey of the Cabeza De Vaca expedition is one of the greatest survival epics in the history of American exploration. By drawing on the accounts of the first explorers and the most recent findings of archaeologists and academic historians, Paul Schneider offers a thrilling and authentic narrative to replace a legend of North American exploration.


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