The Last Days of the Incas
by Kim MacQuarrie · first published 2007
57% recommend43% neutral
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 out-numbered 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
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I'm around a third of the way through 'The Last Days of the Incas' by Kim MacQuarrie [0]. It's quite a gripping read, trying to wrap your head around how (spoiler? ;) a few hundred Spaniards conquered an empire of millions. Can recommend. [0] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/354038.The_Last_Days_of_...
on “Inca Road System” ↗…and the Incas managed to kill only a single conquistador. If you want to finally abuse yourself of the fairy tale notion that somehow justice will always prevail in the world, I recommend reading "The Last Days Of The Incas."
on “The greatest mystery of the Inca Empire was its strange economy (2012)” ↗…political or economic systems. This is absolutely what happened to the Incan empire predatory to its subjugation to a few hundred conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro. For those interested check out Last Days of the Incas.
on “Evidence for European presence in the Americas in AD 1021” ↗…Notre-Dame and Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and I loved both of them, can recommend. Seveneves is an amazing book, just make sure you skip the last part. If you are into history I can recommend The last days of the Incas by Kim MaqQuarrie, it's just an insanely interesting description on how the Incas was conquered, it feels like you're there man. If you like evolutionary biology/phsycology then check out The Red Queen…
on “Ask HN: What's the "best" book you've ever read?” ↗Haven't read the article, but I recently read Kim MacQuarrie's The Last Days of the Incas (on the advice of someone on here). I got the impression from there that the conquistadors, or at least Pizarro, were pretty bad. Not for wanting to conquer and dispossess another empire - that was after…
on “Contested Legacy of the Conquistadors” ↗…the existing translations and eeked out the "juice" of the original or at least the truth the author tried to communicate. [0] https://scroll.in/article/876969/what-makes-a-translation-gr... [1] The Last Days of the Incas by Kim MacQuarrie [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Requirement_of_1513
on “"Don't You Just Upload It to ChatGPT?"” ↗…the article seems to put a similar emphasis on the conquistadors being severely outnumbered, glazing their exceptional fortitude and skill etc. That narrative (from Guns, although the article uses The Last Days of the Incas as the source) has been critiqued in Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest[2] which among other things points out how Germs doesn’t mention or properly contextualize the native allies that Pizzaro had.…
on “Conquest of the Incas” ↗