Monuments of the Incas, originally published in hardcover in 1982, has been reissued without changes in paperback by the University of New Mexico Press. A decade after its original publication, it remains a uniquely attractive volume that should interest a broad spectrum of readers. Of all their artistic accomplishments, the Incas are best known for their masonry constructions. Few sights inspire awe as do the finely cut and polished stone walls that survive in the city of Cuzco, or the abandoned terrace systems that hug the steep valley slopes of the Urubamba. These monuments have long fascinated travelers and scholars. Literally millions of visitors have made the journey to sites like Machu Picchu, Ollantaytambo, and Sacsahuaman.

The new paperback is a lushly illustrated volume with more than 150 dramatic black-and-white photographs by Edward Ranney, supplemented by site plans and maps. The book successfully captures the beauty and power of classic Inca masonry and gives some sense of its architectural and geographic setting. The printing quality is excellent, and even the most discriminating reader will feel proud to have this book gracing the coffee table.

The text by John Hemming consists of a brief summary of Inca architecture followed by descriptions of 14 Inca sites, most of which lie in and around the ancient capital of Cuzco. A few more distant sites like Ingapirca in Ecuador and Huanuco Pampa in south-central Peru are included, but coastal sites and Inca provincial capitals outside Peru are conspicuous in their absence. As in his earlier publications, Hemming’s analysis is mainly based on sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish accounts and personal observations. Archaeological and technological analyses play only a supporting role in the descriptions. Nevertheless, the book does provide an excellent introduction to well-known sites and less-accessible ones, such as Saihuite, Vilcashuaman, and Moray. While many of these archaeological complexes have been treated elsewhere in more detail, this volume offers a clear and balanced account of them. The accompanying endnotes and bibliography further enhance the book’s value. While a more comprehensive treatment of Inca architecture can be found in Inca Architecture by Graziano Gasparini and Luise Margolies (1980) and Inka Settlement Planning by John Hyslop (1990), no other book comes closer to conveying the artistic grandeur of classic Inca constructions.