A new book on the conquest of America chronicles the "extreme violence" of the 16th century.

Internal struggles among the Incas or the bloody expedition to El Dorado The Spanish explorer Pedro de Ursúa are some episodes that are narrated in a new book that portrays how "extremely violent" the history of the 16th century was in America .

The book intertwines the civil wars of Peru, the conquest of the Inca Empire and the great problem of the runaway slave trade in Panama , explains the author of The Conquest of America: A History of Violence between Civilizations (Erasmus), Rafael Castro, in an interview.

The Spanish writer explains that the origin of this book is his interest in Pedro de Ursúa and "the mythical El Dorado expedition," which was characterized by the "extreme violence" that was unleashed among the men who participated in it.

Research into the context of the period led Castro to conclude that violence was the thread that connected many of the episodes that occurred during the conquest of America and the events that preceded the arrival of the Spanish to the continent.

" The Spanish were very violent . A conquest is not achieved any other way; it's impossible," he notes. But he adds that the conquered peoples and all the actors involved in these stories "were also violent."

Thus, the question is asked: " Were the Spanish more violent than the peoples they conquered, than the rest of the nations of Europe? "

Castro believes that in Spanish historiography on the conquest of America, the one he drew upon most in writing his book, "some have exaggerated it and others have minimized it," although he admits that the vast majority of historians have given things "the value they deserve."

Episodes such as the dog-whipping of slaves in Panama by the Spanish (which consisted of using dogs against the slaves ), the human sacrifices of the Mexicas and the custom of burying the Inca alongside many of his subjects show the crudeness that the writer has tried to capture in his book.

A violence that he does not see as exclusive to the 16th century : "We all know what is happening in Palestine, a full-blown genocide broadcast live on television as a completely disproportionate response to a brutal act by Hamas," he says.

Therefore, he asserts that "absolutely all periods of history have been violent ," since "violence is inherent to the human species."

However, he emphasizes that not only is violence common to the entire human species, regardless of where it comes from, but so too are "cooperation between people, love, friendship, and empathy."