In less than a century the Incas rose from obscure origins to build one of the largest empires of the ancient world, extending northwards from the capital, Cusco, along the spine of the Andes to embrace most of modern Peru and Ecuador, and southwards into Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. This new survey provides the most comprehensive, up-to-date and authoritative account available of the rapid ascendancy of the Incas, their politics, economics, religion, architecture, art and technology, and their subsequent downfall. The authors look in detail at Cusco and at the four parts of the empire, following the vast road system to explore not just famous sites such as Machu Picchu, but all the major regional settlements, on and off the Inca Trail. The concluding chapter and epilogue are devoted to the end of the empire: the arrival of the Spaniards, the assassination of the Inca ruler Atawallpa, and the final years of the rebellious, neo-Inca state in the tropical forests of Vilcabamba.
