About

EDUCATION

Matthew Restall was born in London, England, in 1964. He grew up in Madrid, Caracas, and Tokyo, but was schooled in England, primarily at Wellington College, before going on to receive a BA degree in Modern History from Oxford University in 1986. He earned a PhD in Latin American History from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1992, and has since held teaching positions at various universities in the United States.

PUBLICATIONS

Since 1995, Restall has published twenty-four books—forty-one, counting revised and translated editions—and almost a hundred essays and articles. His books have been published in seven languages. Seven are available as audiobooks. He focuses on six specializations: the Spanish Conquest era in the Americas; Aztec and Maya history; the history of colonial Mesoamerica, primarily Yucatan but including Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize; the historical African diaspora in the Americas; the history of Christopher Columbus and what he calls Columbiana; and the history of popular music.

His best-known books are Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest (listed as one of the twelve Best History Books of 2003 by The Economist, available in five languages, and published in an updated edition in 2021), When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History (which won the 2019 Conference on Latin American History’s Howard F. Cline Memorial Prize for best book or article “judged to make the most significant contribution to the history of Indians in Latin America”), and The Nine Lives of Christopher Columbus (published by Norton in the autumn of 2025, also available as an audiobook read by Restall himself).

His other books include The Maya World: Yucatec Culture and Society, 1550-1850 (1997), Maya Conquistador (1998), Invading Guatemala (with Florine Asselbergs, 2007), Latin America in Colonial Times (with Kris Lane, 2011; 2nd edition, 2018), The Conquistadors (with Felipe Fernández-Armesto, 2012), and Return to Ixil: Maya Society in an Eighteenth-Century Yucatec Town (with Mark Christensen, 2019). His book The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan won the Conference on Latin American History’s 2009 prize for best book on Mexican history. Restall has written three books with art historian Amara Solari: The Maya (2020, in Oxford’s Very Short Introductions series), The Maya Apocalypse and its Western Roots (2021), and The Friar and the Maya: Diego de Landa and the Account of the Things of Yucatan (with Solari as well as John F. Chuchiak and Traci Ardren, 2023), which also won the Conference on Latin American History prize for best book on Mexican history.

Restall’s entry into the field of pop music history was initiated by Blue Moves (2020, in the 33 1/3 series), which was followed by two monographs: Ghosts: Journeys to Post-pop. How David Sylvian, Mark Hollis, and Kate Bush reinvented pop music (2024), and On Elton John (2025, in Oxford University Press’s Opinionated Guides series).

Restall appears regularly on TV documentaries, radio shows, and podcasts, discussing the Aztecs, Mayas, Columbus, the Spanish conquistadors, and the history of rock and pop music.

 

ACCOLADES & POSITIONS

Restall is a member of the New Philology school of Colonial Mexican History, and a founder of a related school, the New Conquest History. He has won fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (three times), the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the John Carter Brown Library (twice), the Library of Congress, and the Capitol Historical Society (twice). He was a Member of the Board of Governors of the John Carter Brown Library (2014-23), President of the American Society for Ethnohistory (2017-18), and Greenleaf Distinguished Professor of Latin American Studies at Tulane University (2020). He is a former editor of Ethnohistory journal (2007-16) and of the Hispanic American Historical Review (2017-22). He is editor of book series for Cambridge and Penn State university presses. 

AWARDS

  • Richard Greenleaf Distinguished Chair in Latin American Studies, Tulane University, 2020
  • When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History winner of the Conference on Latin American History Howard F. Cline Memorial Prize for Best Book on Indigenous History in 2018-19
  • When Montezuma Met Cortés Hudson News National Book of the Month (August 2018)
  • President, American Society for Ethnohistory, 2017-18
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships, 2023-24, 2001-02, and 1997-98
  • Kislak Fellowship, Kluge Center, Library of Congress, 2017
  • Capitol Fellowship, US Capitol Historical Society, 2017
  • Leverhulme Visiting Professorship, School for Advanced Study, University of London, 2017-18
  • Membership (Fellowship), Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, 2013-14
  • Saunders Fellowship, John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, 2013-14
  • The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan winner of the Conference on Latin American History Prize for Best Book on Mexican History in 2009
  • Faculty Scholar Award for Outstanding Achievement, Penn State, 2007
  • John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, 2003-04
  • Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest one of The Economist twelve Best History Books of 2003

UPCOMING

In addition to promoting and lecturing on his recent books—especially on the Aztecs, on Columbus, on Elton John, and on post-pop history—Restall is working on a new book on the history of early Belize. The project, whose working title is The Invention of Colonialism—builds upon may of the themes of his previous books, such as Maya history, the experience of enslaved Africans in the Americas, and comparative imperialism.