Kim MacQuarrie

The Last Days of the Incas is a terrifically readable history of the Spanish conquest of the Incas and Peru. Whereas John Hemming's Conquest of the Incas is the definitive modern history, MacQuarrie brings to bear a more narrative and engaging approach.

Last Days is historically thorough, but MacQuarrie writes many of the incidents of the conquest in a more fictional style. Often scenes are are qualified with comments like "Undoubtedly, Pizarro felt such-and-such," or "No doubt Manco looked show more out over the valley, etc." Once one accepts the speculative commentary for what it is, it shouldn't be bothersome, and is more than made up for by the narrative flow.

The story of the conquest is well-known: Pizarro & co. swoop into Peru with only a handful of fully armed conquistadors looking for fame and fortune. This small band (aided unknowingly by a smallpox plague ravaging North, Central and South America) kidnap and kill their way to riches and domination. The Incas are able to consolidate their many tribes, but the rebellions all flame out.

Ultimately, the Spanish prevail despite their own internecine battles that ends in the death of Francisco Pizarro by Spanish hands.

John Hemming is for the hardest core academic reading of the Incan conquest. MacQuarrie is faster and more fiction-like read. Both are highly recommended. show less

A popular topic of discussion in European intellectual circles over the last couple of centuries has been the so-called Black Legend. Largely formulated in northern Protestant Europe, the Black Legend holds the the golden age of the Spanish Empire was a nightmare of brutality, repression, fanaticism and exploitation, and that the Spanish, both in Europe and in their American colonies, gloried in unspeakable acts in the name of God and the Spanish king. Not surprisingly, this belief was show more particularly strong in Britain and the Netherlands, two countries who had plenty of history with the Spanish. Equally unsurprisingly, the Spanish strongly reject the Black Legend, to the extent that some scholars now refer to a White Legend, a Spanish-sponsored revisionism which goes to the other extreme and portrays the Spanish as, if not exactly enlightened colonizers, as certainly much more humane than they have been portrayed. I’m not versed enough in Spanish colonial history to offer an educated opinion one way or another on the validity or otherwise of the Black Legend, however, after reading this book, I am quite comfortable saying that on the basis of Spanish activities in Peru, the Black Legend seems much more likely than the White. You will seldom find a more horrifying account of greed, brutality, venality and treachery than the history of Francisco Pizzaro’s conquest of the Inca Empire. There is really no saving grace for Spain here. In the space of four decades, a few thousand Spaniards wiped out a great and cultured civilization, murdered uncountable numbers of its inhabitants and subjected the rest to slavery, all in the name of God, Gold and Glory. The noble side of the story is the heroic resistance the Inca, using spears and swords against horses, muskets, armour and cannon, put up for those forty years. This is an extremely well-written account of horrors beyond imagining, an ugly and brutal story that is nonetheless enthralling. It is topped and tailed by an exciting account of the discovery of the lost Inca cities of Macchu Picchu and Vilcabamba and the eccentric characters who believed enough in the legends to go out and find them. I guess we wait now for Spanish revisionism of this story. I can’t see how it can be done, but it will be some job of restoration if it is achieved show less

Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro was the illegitimate son of a very poor woman who became the ruler of Peru by conquering the Incas. The Incas put up a good fight, and won many battles. But their territory continued to shrink as the Incas sought a place to live in the mountains. This book tells their story from the Spanish arrival and the death of the last Inca emperor. The book feels comprehensive but interesting. My only complaint is the author editorializing too much: he states as show more fact the Incas were benevolent rulers and theirs was a utopia. I think that goes too far. Just because the Spanish were so wrong in everything they did in colonizing the Americas, that doesn’t mean the opposite (in essence a perfect society) is true of the colonized peoples. Setting that aside, it’s an excellent history of the end of the Incas and Peru sounds so beautiful and bountiful. show less

Irrespective of sentiments and political correctness (PC Brigade alert), Pizzaro's conquest of the Incas-while nefarious-also holds perpetual lessons for us in the form of leadership contrasts between both the Conquistadores and the Incan Royalty. And these contrasts form a crucial backdrop to MacQuarrie's narration of the rise and fall of the Incan Empire. Intertwined alongside are the fates of the Pizzaro clan and the turns in their fortunes. This is an epic tour de force rendition of a show more tragic history which reverberates as viscerally today as it did when the events mentioned transpired. show less