The Duration and Political Nature of the Inca Empire

Description

This is a fascinating resource on the evolution of the Inca Empire and, in particular, the creation of chronology and genealogy of the Inca dynasty. The work argues that the Incas, both as an ethnic group in the Cuzco region and as an empire, lasted a lot longer than presently thought. The core of this research focuses on exploring and re-evaluating many of the influential factors, which contribute to fundamental discrepancies in accepted interpretations of Inca history. Essential to the content of the work is the view that an important part of the problem leading to the many differing conclusions concerning Inca history lies in the way in which the documentary evidence has been assembled (methods of historiography), often with disregard for the socio-political and religious contexts in which such 'historic-laden' texts were constructed by and for Inca and / or Spanish colonial officials and clergy. In order to interpret the various historic documentary evidence and to better assess its value, it has been an essential part of this work to determine who wrote what, for whom it was written, why it was written, and who benefited in any way from it being written. Furthermore, it assess the effects that special interest groups may have had when constructing - and therefore, to an extent, fabricating - Inca past history.