Aztec Blood: Sacrifice, Empire, and Spanish Conquest

From Lake Texcoco's chinampas rose Tenochtitlan, where Aztec priests scaled Templo Mayor pyramids for heart extractions sustaining cosmic order. This book traces imperial expansion through Flower Wars, pochteca merchants, and tribute codices that fed 200,000 citizens—until Hernán Cortés allied with Tlaxcalans, exploited smallpox, and besieged the island city for 93 days. Drawing from Florentine Codex accounts, Bernal Díaz chronicles, and recent Tlatelolco excavations, Aztec Blood: Sacrifice, Empire, and Spanish Conquest reveals ritual complexity, military sophistication, and cultural collision that ended Mesoamerica's last great power. It examines how spiritual imperatives met European steel.