Over more than three decades, Brian Bauer has been a constant, prolific leader in the expansion of anthropological and historical knowledge of the Inca and the ancient Andes more broadly, frequently involving students and other colleagues in research and publications that bridge the Spanish-English language barrier. In their recent book, Voices from Vilcabamba, Bauer and coauthors Madeleine Halac-Higashimori and Gabriel E. Cantarutti hew to this legacy. They present the decades (ca. 1536–1607) of historical struggle between the last Inca sovereigns, Spanish colonizers of various stripes, and other Indigenous groups throughout this rugged eastern Andean enclave. The volume consists of two short, densely detailed chapters of historical narrative, and five sections with English translations of early Spanish colonial documents (hence the plural “voices” from Vilcabamba).
The first chapter covers the decades of Inca rule in exile, from Manco Inca’s rejection of Spanish co-rule in Cuzco to Viceroy Toledo’s administration, the...
