For anyone interested in what the Americas looked like before and after Columbus, I highly recommend the two books, 1491[1] and 1493[2], by Charles C. Mann. I finish the first one and I'm half way through the second one and really openend my eyes. Great reads!
Also great is The Fall of Civilizations' episode about Tenochtitlan [1].
The podcast is the work of a British historian named Paul M. M. Cooper, who's also published a book derived from the podcast. Each episode is really well researched, incorporating recent discoveries rather than uncritically repeating old tropes. No filler, no theatrics, just really well-told history, backed by real sources.
Another excellent history podcast is The Rest is History [2], who also devoted an excellent (albeit much shorter) episode to the same topic.
Is it politics free? As in, no left rewrite of the noble savage? Because all those tribes that instant-joined the conquistadors still negate all that "utopia destroyed by evil europeans" story.
Despite being relatively conservative, I don’t think The Rest is History would appeal to someone who thinks any telling of history that doesn’t fit a far-right worldview is “political.”
But such a world-view wrapped in tales, eternalizes suffering and does refuse to intervene in toxic cultures stuck? Take the middle east- there where two attempts at a two state solution, and the victims of the story, rejected both, wanting a "final" jew free solution.
How does one feel contributing to progress - when reality moves so obviously orthogonal to the stories you tell yourself?
I think the rest is history did a great job of providing a balanced take in their multi part series on Cortez. They didn't shy away from the brutality on either side of the conquest. That is to say, they explored the context for why so many logal groups allied with Cortez, and the critical role of La Malinche as a translator and former Aztec slave.
Thanks. Thats the sort of answer that promises really interesting complex reality, without a massaged in moral-message that removes all learnings for today. I shall give it a try.
Of course, another major factor there is that just about everyone subject to the Aztecs hated them for a variety of reasons, but most obviously all the raiding/kidnapping and blood sacrifice. That's not to say the Spanish Empire was necessarily better, but their opportunities would have been much slimmer if the Aztecs had been even a little bit less all-around cruel.
Actually better is the book "The Fifth Sun: A new history of the Aztecs" written in Nahuatl (the Aztec language) and translated by Camille Townsend. It is an account of how the Aztecs viewed conquest, which they didn't see as a conquest initially. Also the descriptions of the city of Tenochitlan indicate that it was just as sophisticated, and cosmopolitan as it is today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Sun:_A_New_History_of_th...
...
Columbus sailed for India
Found Salvador instead
He shook hands with some Indians and soon they all were dead
They got TB and typhoid and athlete's foot
Diphtheria and the flu
Excuse me great nations coming through!
Hide your wives and daughters
Hide your sons as well
With the great nations of Europe you never can tell
From where you and I are standing
At the end of a century
Europes have sprung up everywhere as even I can see
But there on the horizon as a possibility
Some bug from out of Africa might come for you and me
Destroying everything in its path
From sea to shining sea
Like the great nations of Europe
In the sixteenth century
Strongly second these recommendations. I enormously enjoyed them for both their information density, but also their extremely clear and proficient writing style. Absolute class journalism.
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39020.1491?ref=nav_sb_ss... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9862761-1493