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The Last Days of the Incas
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MSRP: $16.95
Your Price: $13.22
Savings: $ 3.73 ( 22% )
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Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Additional The Last Days of the Incas Information
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In 1532, the fifty-four-year-old Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro led a force of 167 men, including his four brothers, to the shores of Peru. Unbeknownst to the Spaniards, the Inca rulers of Peru had just fought a bloody civil war in which the emperor Atahualpa had defeated his brother Huascar. Pizarro and his men soon clashed with Atahualpa and a huge force of Inca warriors at the Battle of Cajamarca. Despite being outnumbered by more than two hundred to one, the Spaniards prevailed -- due largely to their horses, their steel armor and swords, and their tactic of surprise. They captured and imprisoned Atahualpa. Although the Inca emperor paid an enormous ransom in gold, the Spaniards executed him anyway. The following year, the Spaniards seized the Inca capital of Cuzco, completing their conquest of the largest native empire the New World has ever known. Peru was now a Spanish colony, and the conquistadors were wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. But the Incas did not submit willingly. A young Inca emperor, the brother of Atahualpa, soon led a massive rebellion against the Spaniards, inflicting heavy casualties and nearly wiping out the conquerors. Eventually, however, Pizarro and his men forced the emperor to abandon the Andes and flee to the Amazon. There, he established a hidden capital, called Vilcabamba. Although the Incas fought a deadly, thirty-six-year-long guerrilla war, the Spanish ultimately captured the last Inca emperor and vanquished the native resistance. Kim MacQuarrie lived in Peru for five years and became fascinated by the Incas and the history of the Spanish conquest. Drawing on both native and Spanish chronicles, he vividly describes the dramatic story of the conquest, with all its savagery and suspense. MacQuarrie also relates the story of the modern search for Vilcabamba, of how Machu Picchu was discovered, and of how a trio of colorful American explorers only recently discovered the lost Inca capital of Vilcabamba, hidden for centuries in the Amazon. This authoritative, exciting history is among the most powerful and important accounts of the culture of the South American Indians and the Spanish Conquest.
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What Customers Say About The Last Days of the Incas:
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It appears that only two thirds of the text is visible. I just purchased this book for my Kindle 2 and am very anxious to read it. The rest of the text does seem to be complete. Even changing the font to the very smalest does not help. The first 6 pages are The Chronology of Events, however, are not able to be read completely. The spacing is off.
It is one of those great books you just hate to see come to an end. MacQuarrie's book describes with historic precision the Inca empire and their eventual total decimation by Spanish armament, greed, corruption, lust and religious fervor. The author's exacting research and wonderful narrative abilities make this one of my all time favorites.
I don't have any trips to Peru planned anytime soon, but I would recommend this book whole-heartedly to anyone heading down there. Fascinating details on the Pizzaro bros, Cortez, Balboa, and De Soto. I got tired of reading about the Incas and didn't finish the book, but what I did read was great. I loved the conquistadors in 4th grade social studies and this brought back that childhood excitement.
I will be looking for more books by Mr. This is a read I wanted to finish, but hoped it wouldn't end the way I knew it was suppose to. MacQuarrie and can only hope they will be half as entertaining. The last days of the Incas is eloquently told in a format that presents more like a novel of fiction, rather than the usual factual regurgitation of stall memoirs. I found myself engrossed in the adroiltly presented life and death struggles of a culture all to soon extinguished by the avarice of the most corrupt religously cloaked conquistadors.
If you are interested in learning the details of the fall of the Incan empire, and the Spanish conquest of South America, you will enjoy this book. Who needs fiction when history is this rich. This was a well written, easy to read narrative of one of the greatest series of events in human history.
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