The Last Days of the Incas

Any understanding of transport networks across the Isthmus (road, river, railroad, and Canal) must consider the conquest of the Inca Empire.

MacQuarrie’s book illustrates how Panama was the staging ground for Pizarro’s small band of entrepreneurs who conquered the largest empire ever in the Americas. And, later, how the gold and silver from Peru was transported back to Spain across Panama.

Moreover, the book details how a bloody civil war between the conquerors almost cost them the fruits of their original victory. All of this set the stage for what would later come to much of Latin America.

If you don’t know the story of the Spanish conquest of the Incas, read this book. For me, it is as good as Game of Thrones—except this is no fantasy. The events are real, the history meticulously researched. MacQuarrie’s narrative style is sweeping and engaging, giving readers a ground-level view of the dramatic final days of the Inca empire. Palace drama. Epic battles. Heroic resistance. How can you refuse?

An astonishing and infuriating book about betrayal, treachery, and superior technology. Being introduced to the complexities of the Inca culture, religion, and government, along with the economics (and religious sops to those economics) driving the Spainards makes for a tense and gripping story. I called it “infuriating” because, knowing how those populations would be decimated by disease and slavery, reading about the ways they were betrayed was really tough. By telling the story with such detail (the research behind it must have been staggering) makes it new, alive, and ultimately heart-breaking.

For readers in search of a single title covering the entire story of Inca Vilcabamba, from its early conquest by the Incas, through its subjugation by the Spaniards and its rediscovery and exploration in modern times, this is the book of choice. MacQuarrie's style makes me wonder why the story hasn't yet been picked up by Hollywood for a television mini-series.