Thanks for all the responses, I have saved them all for future reference. dose anyone have anything about Empires from the 13th-18th centuries? Especially in reference to the following areas: Age of Exploration, how it assisted the spread of Imperialism, values and motivations of these empires. How did new ideas challenge traditional beliefs? How did science and technology change daily life and how were they harnessed?
Thanks again everyone
Offhand, I can think of a few primary sources (or their closest equivalent) for colonial Spanish America.
Bernal Díaz del Castillo was one of the conquistadores in Cortés's conquest of Mexico, and his work "The True History of the Conquest of New Spain" is considered a classic today.
I think Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún is considered the "father of anthropology". He wrote about the Nahua peoples and Aztec history.
Garcilaso de la Vega chronicled Incan history and legends, as well as Hernando de Soto's actions in Florida. Though his writings were after the fact, consider that many of the first Spaniards to arrive in the New World were illiterate (such as Pizarro).
Bartolomé de las Casas's "Destruction of the Indies" was an influential book about Spanish atrocities towards the American Indians. I'll warn you that it's not well written, but it has considerable historical value.
Secondary sources:
"1491" by Charles C. Mann examines pre-Columbian civilizations in the Americas.
"The Broken Spears" by Miguel Leon-Portilla is about the Aztec perspective of the Spanish conquest.
"Vermeer's Hat" by Timothy Brook is more of global history, though it discusses topics such as the silver mines of Potosí in what is now Bolivia. (Alto Peru when it was a colony) It's mostly about the Dutch East India company (VOC) from what I remember.
"The Columbian Exchange" by Alfred Crosby is a bit dated now, but is an important book about the historical effects of European diseases and American crops.
