I've finished
Conquest of the Incas and it is certainly one of the finest--perhaps
the finest--large-scale Historical study I have ever read. It has a remarkable precision of detail, depth of analysis, and epic scope that make it difficult to put down. And always we see the human element--the odd combination of religiosity and hideous greed of the conquistadors, the equally strange mixture of contempt for the Indians and a willingness to exploit them as well as a paternalistic concern for their welfare in Viceroy Toledo. With the Incas themselves the tiny and vulnerable Vilcabamba State teetered on the edge of survival under the leadership of Manco and his followers but was destroyed in the end owing to foolish actions of its final rulers.
It is a book filled with drama and has political and moral lessons which, I suspect, are relevant today.
It was an inspired choice, Issybird.
