I’m reading it now; it is indeed a very good book. I don’t think it supports the claim that disease hit the Aztecs before Cortes arrived—it makes a brief one-sentence claim to that effect, but other sources (e.g. wikipedia) say the opposite, and give more details (e.g. they say it arrived with the expedition sent to capture Cortes). And of course there’s still Afonso.
Update: Turns out it returns to the topic of Cortes at the end of the book. It confirms what wikipedia says, that smallpox arrived after Cortes had already killed the emperor and fled the city. I think it also exaggerates the role of smallpox even then, actually—it makes it sound like Cortes’ “first assault” on the city failed because the city was too strong and then his “second assault” succeeded because it was weakened by disease. But (a) his “first assault” was just him and his few hundred followers killing the Emperor and escaping, and his “second assault” came after a long siege and involved 200,000 native warriors helping him plus additional Spaniards with siege weapons etc. Totally different things. And (b) smallpox didn’t just strike Tenochtitlan, it hit everywhere, including Cortes’ native allies. And (c) The final battle for Tenochtitlan was intense; he didn’t exactly walk in over the corpses of smallpox-ridden defenders, he had to fight his way in against a gigantic army of determined defenders. So I still stand by my claim that disease had fairly little to do with Cortes’ victory, even though 1493, a book which I otherwise respect, says otherwise. (And by “fairly little” I mean “not so much that my conclusions in the post are undermined.”)
I’m reading it now; it is indeed a very good book. I don’t think it supports the claim that disease hit the Aztecs before Cortes arrived—it makes a brief one-sentence claim to that effect, but other sources (e.g. wikipedia) say the opposite, and give more details (e.g. they say it arrived with the expedition sent to capture Cortes). And of course there’s still Afonso.
Update: Turns out it returns to the topic of Cortes at the end of the book. It confirms what wikipedia says, that smallpox arrived after Cortes had already killed the emperor and fled the city. I think it also exaggerates the role of smallpox even then, actually—it makes it sound like Cortes’ “first assault” on the city failed because the city was too strong and then his “second assault” succeeded because it was weakened by disease. But (a) his “first assault” was just him and his few hundred followers killing the Emperor and escaping, and his “second assault” came after a long siege and involved 200,000 native warriors helping him plus additional Spaniards with siege weapons etc. Totally different things. And (b) smallpox didn’t just strike Tenochtitlan, it hit everywhere, including Cortes’ native allies. And (c) The final battle for Tenochtitlan was intense; he didn’t exactly walk in over the corpses of smallpox-ridden defenders, he had to fight his way in against a gigantic army of determined defenders. So I still stand by my claim that disease had fairly little to do with Cortes’ victory, even though 1493, a book which I otherwise respect, says otherwise. (And by “fairly little” I mean “not so much that my conclusions in the post are undermined.”)