When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History Audible Audiobook – Unabridged Matthew Restall (Author), Steven Crossley (Narrator), HarperAudio (Publisher) (Harper Audio / Ecco Hardcover)

To begin with what's new and convincing, the author builds a good case that Montezuma's "surrender" of his country, a major part of the legend about him and Cortes, may well have originated with a bad translation. To paraphrase the author's explanation, the English language equivalent of Montezuma's welcome was something like, "Let my home be your home." By the time it went through at least one and maybe two translations, it became something like, "I give my country to your king." The mistranslation was undoubtedly helped along by the Spaniards wanting to hear something like it.

Another new feature involves seeing Montezuma as a collector. The author makes a good case that Montezuma collected animals of all descriptions including unusual people. Once Cortes and the other Spaniards arrived in his capital, he may well have decided to add them to his collection. Where I had a problem was with the idea that Montezuma wanted to "collect" Spaniards from the moment he heard about them landing in what is now Mexico. A variety of sources have stated that, rather than lure Cortes to the Aztec capital, Montezuma tried to bribe him to stay away. Once the Spaniards did arrive, Montezuma may well have decided to add the invaders to his collection, but it seems unlikely that he started out wanting to do so.

So what else is wrong with this book? His view of Cortes fits that category. While it does give a reader pause to realize that Cortes had only one truly successful event in his life, the capture of the Aztec capital, the author tears him down at every opportunity. He comes across as, at best, a tool of the other Spanish commanders and at worst, a mediocrity without authority or a single useful idea in his head. Even Cortes's worst enemies never underrated him so much.
Then there is the author's unwillingness to face the role sacrifice played in the Aztec religion. Justifiably he does question the claim that vast numbers of captured warriors ended up on Aztec sacrificial stones. Starting in the Classical world, European writers did have a fondest for adding zeros to any number they wrote down. That said, as often as possible when writing about the Aztecs, the author insists on using the term "execution" rather than sacrifice. He does this in large measure so that he can claim that the Spaniards killed more people than the Aztecs. That is very probably true. The trouble is emphasizing Spanish brutality conflicts with his next claim, that in the wars of the Aztec wars of the 1520s, the Spaniards were more or less along for the ride.

The author's enthusiasm to see the defeat of the Aztecs as primarily a victory for their indigenous rivals leads to his claim that the Spaniards played a rather minor military role in the victory. Having painted himself into that corner, the author has no way to explain how the Spanish killed or enslaved vast numbers of not only Aztecs but other Mesoamericans as well and finally ended up in control of what they called New Spain. In fact the author doesn't even try to explain it.
Despite these objections, the author has unquestionably done his research and has valuable contributions to make. Less special pleading would have helped communicate these useful contribution much more effectively.