Ancient Americas Incas and Aztecs - Top Non Fiction and Fiction
Explore the best fiction and non-fiction books on the Ancient Americas, Incas, and Aztecs. Discover captivating stories, historical accounts, and must-read titles for history buffs and adventure lovers alike.
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Lost City of the Incas
by Hiram Bingham
First published in the 1950s, this is a classic account of the discovery in 1911 of the lost city of Machu Picchu. In 1911 Hiram Bingham, a pre-historian with a love of exotic destinations, set out to Peru in search of the legendary city of Vilcabamba, capital city of the last Inca ruler, Manco Inca. With a combination of doggedness and good fortune he stumbled on the perfectly preserved ruins of Machu Picchu perched on a cloud-capped ledge 2000 feet above the torrent of the Urubamba River. The buildings were of white granite, exquisitely carved blocks each higher than a man. Bingham had not, as it turned out, found Vilcabamba, but he had nevertheless made an astonishing and memorable discovery, which he describes in his bestselling book LOST CITY OF THE INCAS.
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Aztec
by Gary Jennings
The epic tale of an Aztec survivor of the Spanish conquest and his times as a warrior, scribe, travelling merchant, confidant of Motecuhzoma II, and envoy to the invading Spaniards.
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The Conquest of the Incas
by John Hemming
This compelling, authoritative account removes the Incas from the realm of prehistory and legend to show the reality of their struggle against the Spanish invasion.
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The Last Days of the Incas
by Kim MacQuarrie
Documents the epic conquest of the Inca Empire as well as the decades-long insurgency waged by the Incas against the Conquistadors, in a narrative history that is partially drawn from the storytelling traditions of the Peruvian Amazon Yora people. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.
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A Sacred Landscape
by Hugh Thomson
From the lines of the Nasca to the temple-cult of Chavin and the great pyramids of the coast, many of the extraordinary cultures of ancient Peru have only just started to give up their secrets in the last few years. Hugh Thompson has been at the forefront of some of these discoveries. Now, in A Sacred Landscape, he takes the reader on a journey back from the great Moche pyramids to remote sites in the Central highlands that date back to the first millennium BCE-ancient Incan sites of the Andes that remain cloaked in mystery. Drawing on the year that he spent on a farm in the Yucay Valley, Thompson illuminates how things have changed-or failed to change-in the five centuries that separate contemporary Peru from the civilization that is one of the world's oldest and most captivating enigmas. Book jacket.
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Conquistador
by Buddy Levy
In this astonishing work of scholarship that reads like an edge-of-your-seat adventure thriller, acclaimed historian Buddy Levy records the last days of the Aztec empire and the two men at the center of an epic clash of cultures perhaps unequaled to this day. It was a moment unique in human history, the face-to-face meeting between two men from civilizations a world apart. In 1519, Hernán Cortés arrived on the shores of Mexico, determined not only to expand the Spanish empire but to convert the natives to Catholicism and carry off a fortune in gold. That he saw nothing paradoxical in carrying out his intentions by virtually annihilating a proud and accomplished native people is one of the most remarkable and tragic aspects of this unforgettable story. In Tenochtitlán Cortés met his Aztec counterpart, Montezuma: king, divinity, commander of the most powerful military machine in the Americas and ruler of a city whose splendor equaled anything in Europe. Yet in less than two years, Cortés defeated the entire Aztec nation in one of the most astounding battles ever waged. The story of a lost kingdom, a relentless conqueror, and a doomed warrior, Conquistador is history at its most riveting.
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Cradle of Gold
by Christopher Heaney
In 1911, a young Peruvian boy led an American explorer and Yale historian named Hiram Bingham into the ancient Incan citadel of Machu Picchu. Hidden amidst the breathtaking heights of the Andes, this settlement of temples, tombs and palaces was the Incas' greatest achievement. Tall, handsome, and sure of his destiny, Bingham believed that Machu Picchu was the Incas' final refuge, where they fled the Spanish Conquistadors. Bingham made Machu Picchu famous, and his dispatches from the jungle cast him as the swashbuckling hero romanticized today as a true Indiana Jones-like character. But his excavation of the site raised old specters of conquest and plunder, and met with an indigenous nationalism that changed the course of Peruvian history. Though Bingham successfully realized his dream of bringing Machu Picchu's treasure of skulls, bones and artifacts back to the United States, conflict between Yale and Peru persists through the present day over a simple question: Who owns Inca history? In this grand, sweeping narrative, Christopher Heaney takes the reader into the heart of Peru's past to relive the dramatic story of the final years of the Incan empire, the exhilarating recovery of their final cities and the thought-provoking fight over their future. Drawing on original research in untapped archives, Heaney vividly portrays both a stunning landscape and the complex history of a fascinating region that continues to inspire awe and controversy today.
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1491 (Second Edition)
by Charles C. Mann
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A groundbreaking work of science, history, and archaeology that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of Columbus in 1492—from “a remarkably engaging writer” (The New York Times Book Review). Contrary to what so many Americans learn in school, the pre-Columbian Indians were not sparsely settled in a pristine wilderness; rather, there were huge numbers of Indians who actively molded and influenced the land around them. The astonishing Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan had running water and immaculately clean streets, and was larger than any contemporary European city. Mexican cultures created corn in a specialized breeding process that it has been called man’s first feat of genetic engineering. Indeed, Indians were not living lightly on the land but were landscaping and manipulating their world in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Challenging and surprising, this a transformative new look at a rich and fascinating world we only thought we knew.
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A Land So Strange
by Andrés Reséndez
The extraordinary tale of a shipwrecked Spaniard who walked across America in the sixteenth century In 1527, a mission set out from Spain to colonize Florida. But the expedition went horribly wrong: delayed by a hurricane and knocked off course by a colossal error of navigation, the mission quickly became a desperate journey of survival. Of the three hundred men who had embarked, only four survived--three Spaniards and an African slave. This tiny band endured a horrific march through Florida, a harrowing raft passage across the Louisiana coast, and years of enslavement in the American Southwest. They journeyed for almost ten years in search of the Pacific Ocean that would guide them home, seeing lands, peoples, plants, and animals that no outsider had before. In this enthralling tale of four castaways wandering in an unknown land, Andrés Reséndez brings to life the vast, dynamic world of North America just a few years before European settlers would transform it forever.
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The White Rock
by Hugh Thomson
With the backdrop of the Andes mountains, Thomson's intoxicating history of the Inca people and their heartland is a thrilling mix of information and adventure. 45 photos.
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The Ice Maiden
by Johan Reinhard
This book takes armchair adventurers and archaeological enthusiasts not only to the excavation, but back through Peruvian history as it revisits the 1995 discovery of the mummy of a 14-year-old who died or was sacrificed some 530 years ago.
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Aztec Autumn
by Gary Jennings
After the Aztec empire falls to the Spaniards, a young Aztec named Tenamaxtli begins recruiting from among his fellow survivors of the Conquest to once again challenge the Spaniards and restore the Aztec empire.
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The Broken Spears
by LEON-PORTILLA, MIGUEL
For hundreds of years, the history of the conquest of Mexico and the defeat of the Aztecs has been told in the words of the Spanish victors. Miguel LeĂłn-Portilla has long been at the forefront of expanding that history to include the voices of indigenous peoples. In this new and updated edition of his classic The Broken Spears, LeĂłn-Portilla has included accounts from native Aztec descendants across the centuries. These texts bear witness to the extraordinary vitality of an oral tradition that preserves the viewpoints of the vanquished instead of the victors. LeĂłn-Portilla's new Postscript reflects upon the critical importance of these unexpected historical accounts.
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Skull Rack
by Ron Braithwaite
"Tells of two religious figures revising the Mexican Conquest story. De la Pena, Spanish Inquisitor-General, has Mendoza, captured Jesuit historian, revise his book as de la Pena wants history remembered--here retelling the story as far as Cortes' expedition to Mexico. The story concludes in Hummingbird God"--Provided by publisher.
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Hummingbird God
by Ron Braithwaite
The sequel to Skull Rack (Oct. 2007), Hummingbird God continues the tale of Rodrigo de la Pena and Enrique Mendoza, two men of God reliving some of the worst atrocities in history. The story of the conquest of Mexico resumes with de la Pena, the Spanish Inquisitor-General, describing the first meeting of Cortes and Moctecuzoma. De la Pena has captured Mendoza, a Jesuit historian, to force him to retell history, so that the noble conquest of Mexico will forever be remembered exactly as he commands.
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The Seven Serpents Trilogy
by Scott O'Dell
Follows Jesuit seminarian Julian Escobar in the New World as he witnesses the enslavement and exploitation of the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas by Spanish conquerers.