The New Yorker
February 26, 2018
When Montezuma Met Cortes, by Matthew Restall (Ecco).
In 1519, the emperor Montezuma received the conquistador Hernan Cortes and some of his men as guests in the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan. Within two years, Montezuma was dead, the Aztecs routed, and the city destroyed. This revisionist history contests received views of Cortes as either swashbuckling hero or bloviating villain, of the Aztecs as cannibals, and of Montezuma as a meek, mystical king who volunatarily capitulated. Restall skillfully describes a subtler story of relationships both loving and coercive. He offers a particularly bold interpretation of Montezuma’s devotion to his palace zoo, arguing that he saw Cortes and his men as exotic creatures and hoped to learn by studying them.