In 1572 the Spanish sacked Vilcabamba, the last Inca stronghold, and the city was rapidly overtaken by the jungle, receding for hundreds of years into legend and myth. This is the story of how Vilcabamba was founded and how the Incas held out against the Spanish for over 30 years in a savage guerrilla war. Hundreds of years later, at the turn of this century an American explorer, Hiram Bingham, stumbled on the ruins of Machu Pichu and announced to the world that he had found Vilcabamba, the lost city of the Incas. For fifty years the academic world agreed with him until in 1967 another American explorer discovered the real Vilcabamba...
This is the biography of a city - through history, myth, legend, literature, exploration and archaeology.
Promotion info
The haunting story of the destruction of a magnificent civilisation
Reviews
'A welcome addition to the literature ... Lively and dramtic' WASHINGTON POST 'Fascinating and enthralling ... Truly a work worth Inca gold' HISTORY MAGAZINE 'The Last Days of the Incas surprises, delivers history, and reads like a great yarn. I've read yards of books on the Incas but this one took me out of the classroom and into that long-lost world.' Keith Bellows, Editor in Chief, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER
