Vilcabamba and the Archaeology of Inca Resistance

In this book, Brian Bauer and colleagues chronicle the changing fortunes and significance of Vilcabamba, a jungle region located just 100 kilometers to the northwest of Cuzco, the Inca imperial capital. For many scholars, the death of the mighty Inca Empire transpired in Vilcabamba in 1572, when a Spanish invasion overran the breakaway Inca kingdom that was established there and captured its young ruler, Túpac Amaru. After the annihilation of the Inca resistance, Vilcabamba receded into the colonial periphery until Hiram Bingham's 1911 expedition brought lost Inca sites new global attention. For most of the past century, Vilcabamba remained inaccessible to all but the most determined explorers, even as the development of the nearby site of Machu Picchu offered ever-growing numbers of tourists the opportunity to stage their own ersatz expeditions of discovery. In the past 20 years, the volume of tourism has stimulated the improvement of new jungle destinations—new...