Sometimes you don’t know just how much you don’t know. I came to that realization while reading “You Dreamed of Empires,” Álvaro Enrigue’s excellent new novel (translated by Natasha Wimmer) about the ...

Setting out for New Spain and the serendipitous gift of language -- The battle with the Tabascans and the acquisition of La Malinche -- Montezuma's message -- The gambler stakes all : "either win the ...

Some lessons just never sink in, even after 500 years. Mexican president Enrique Peña Nieto should study Mexican history more—particularly the history of Montezuma, the Aztec ruler, and his dealings ...

Prologue: Invention -- Mysterious kindness -- No small amazement -- Social grace and monstrous ritual -- The empire in his hands -- The greatest enterprises -- Principal plunderers -- The epic boxer - ...

You Dreamed of Empires sets the scene for a violent historical encounter: the war between the Spanish and Aztec empires. But in a fictionalization of Hernán Cortés' arrival in the city of Tenochtitlan ...