Reproduction of the original: By Right of Conquest by G.A. Henty

This is an enquiry into the place of the right of conquest in international relations since the early sixteenth century, and the causes and consequences of its demise in the twentieth century. It was a recognized principle of international law until the early years of this century that a state that emerges victorious in a war is entitled to claim sovereignty over territory which it has taken possession. Sharon Korman shows how the First World War - which led to the rise of self-determination and to calls for the prohibition of way - prompted the reconstruction of international law and the consequent abolition of the title by conquest. Her conclusion, which highlights the merits and defects of the modern law as a vehicle for discouraging war by denying the title to the conqueror, challenges many of the assumptions that have come to constitute part of the conventional wisdom of our times. This is a study, not of international law narrowly conceived, but of the place of a changing legal principle in international history and the contemporary world.

When Roger Hankshaw boards the merchant ship Swan for a perilous journey to the New World, little does the young Englishman know what adventure awaits him. After a shipwreck strands him in Pre-Columbian Mexico, Roger must find a way to avoid becoming one of the many human sacrifices offered to the Aztec gods. Proving himself to be honorable and trustworthy, Roger builds enduring friendships with many of the natives. Later, when the Spanish noble and explorer Hernando Cortez arrives, Roger is placed in a difficult position. How can an Englishman explain his presence in Mexico? Cortez, with a military force intent on converting the heathen Aztecs, will also plunder their riches. Can Roger help his native friends survive the turmoil of the Spanish conquest of Mexico?

After more than fifty years, Cycles of Conquest is still one of the best syntheses of more than four centuries of conquest, colonization, and resistance ever published. It explores how ten major Native groups in northern Mexico and what is now the United States responded to political incorporation, linguistic hegemony, community reorganization, religious conversion, and economic integration. Thomas E. Sheridan writes in the new foreword commissioned for this special edition that the book is “monumental in scope and magisterial in presentation.” Cycles of Conquest remains a seminal work, deeply influencing how we have come to view the greater Southwest and its peoples.

From the national bestselling author of House of War comes the tale of an epic battle that spans worlds and ages, of magical forces and earthbound armies that are drawn together by the young William the Conqueror as he fights to achieve his destiny--to reign as King of England.

"The history of the world has been the history of peoples on the move, as they occupy new lands and establish their claims over them. Almost invariably, this has meant the violent dispossession of the previous inhabitants. David Day tells the story of how this happened - the ways in which invaders have triumphed and justified conquest which, as he shows, is a bloody and often prolonged process that can last centuries."--