And in San Marcos, Southwest Texas State University professor Don Olson produces the original copy of Cabeza de Vaca's own story to lead Wood down the old Comanche trail into Northern Mexico, with Texas' Linda Walker and archaeologist Bob Mallouf as his tour guides. From the ruined cities and architectural treasures that testify to the great civilizations the conquistadors found in this New World, Wood's maps of their expeditions take us through today's big cities and the same small towns through which they passed. The mountains are as high and the jungles as thick today as they were when the conquistadors climbed and cut their way through them. Wood's approach to history is intensely personal. He does not use the usual techniques of scholarly comments and re-created dramatizations.
Wood is a glutton for punishment.
This journey is worthy of an episode of Survivor . He is clearly awed by their accomplishments, even as he grapples with the moral questions their methods still raise today. What happened 500 years ago is still working itself out today. Each one of them could be a Hollywood epic. Some of them, in fact, already have been movie epics, and you'll see a few scenes from those golden oldies here.