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A SIGNAL VICTORY by David Stacton

A SIGNAL VICTORY

By

Pub Date: Feb. 9th, 1962
Publisher: Pantheon

From Egypt to Japan to Booth's assassination of Lincoln -- and now to a long time agitator who harried the Conquistadores in Yucatan, Stacton again enlightens and annotates history, gives his characters reality against their environment. A survivor from shipwreck Gonzalo Guerrero escapes the death that awaits him for refuge with the Maya, improvises and adapts and finally adopts the Indian way of life. With his marriage to a chief's daughter he becomes adviser to his father-in-law, is able to avoid engagement with the Spaniards he has renounced, makes efforts to unite the peninsula, and watches the advances of Cortes, Montejo, Davila and Alvarado, to the point of his own honorable death. There's a sharp and immediate quality to this 16th century tale of an isolated stand against an implacable enemy and the sense of people and their times again comes through in bold relief.