A thoroughly easy and informing read. Schneider's style is pop history at its least intrusive: the occasional footnote or quote, but mostly a narrative, flowing story that is easy to get lost in.

I've had a recent surge of interest in colonial Meso-America and this book fulfilled my wishes: specific enough not to feel like a survey history of the entire continent, approachable enough not to feel dry or difficult. In all, it was relaxing to read (despite the intensity of some of the subject matter).

In the end, though, the book's main flaw is that its structure follows that of Cabeza de Vaca's: descriptive and full-flowered in the first geographical half of the journey, then frenetic and blurry for the last fifty pages or so, where much of the action actually occurs: the many-month trek northwest across Mexico and Texas, and the reunion with Spanish conquistadors.

An aside: A couple of times in the book, Schneider refers to situations as "grizzly." I think he means "grisly." What do you think? ( )

Amazing story of 400 Spanish explorers who walked into the bush of southern Florida in the 1520s and disappeared - eight years later four survivors showed up on the west coast of central Mexico, dressed as natives and carrying nothing but a few hundred indians worshiping them as powerful shamans. In the intervening 8 years it was one incredible adventure after the next, mostly dire tales of starvation, violence and exotic peoples. They were the first to enter North America and cross it. An otherwise little known story today, it was a classic best-seller in the 16th century, retold here with the latest scholarly findings. There are few comparable stories in the history of exploration, North America was an entirely unknown continent. ( )