The Last Days of the Incas

Kim MacQuarrie

May 2007 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this ebook

The epic story of the fall of the Inca Empire to Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro in the aftermath of a bloody civil war, and the recent discovery of the lost guerrilla capital of the Incas, Vilcabamba, by three American explorers.

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—only recently rediscovered by a trio of colorful American explorers. 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.

Ratings and reviews

Kim MacQuarrie begins with the familiar story of Francisco Pizarro's meeting with the Inca emperor, Atahualpa, in 1532; the book really becomes interesting, however, once it delves into the brutal and complicated years of battle between warring factions of Spaniards, natives and political rivals that finished off the Inca empire. There is plenty of fascinating scholarship and raw history here that makes this worth reading, but most of it has been wrapped in a robust and cinematic narrative style that places a premium on drama. As a consequence, the text is riddled with ahistorical flourishes (i.e., flights of fancy prefaced by "undoubtedly..." and "one can imagine..."). By the end of the book, the reader is left with the feeling that he has been told a story; a complete, and self-contained narrative of adventure. In essence, it's a military history that pays very short shrift to Inca culture. We are told dozens of times throughout the book that the empire stretched "2,500 miles," as if by dint of repetition (rather than by being provided a wealth of historical detail) we will be filled with respect and admiration for the Inca body politic. All of this seems designed to thrill and enthrall casual readers. Those interested in a more exacting history would do well to look elsewhere.

This is a thoroughly fascinating insight into old world empire building. These 2 cultures are more alike than historical narratives sometimes portray them. It's got a nice chronology at the beginning of the book for date wonks. The artfull way the writer includes the mindsets of the actors made this a book I could hardly put down.

Powerful prose. Beautiful to read. However in my opinion the author's point of view is rooted in the capitalist society of our time and fails in fully understanding the spirit of those explorers who fought for land, gold and the fountain of eternal youth.

About the author

Kim MacQuarrie is a four-time Emmy Award–winning filmmaker and award-winning author who has lived and worked all over the world. Educated in the US and France, he lived for five years in Peru and spent some of that time living with a recently contacted tribe in the Amazon jungle, only 100 miles from Machu Picchu. He is the author of Life and Death in the Andes and The Last Days of the Incas, as well as three illustrated books about Peru. He currently divides his time between the US, Peru, and Thailand. Visit him at KimMacQuarrie.com.