Prescott opens with a portrait of the Inca state, its roads, its sun-worship and its remarkable administration, then follows Francisco Pizarro and his small band from the first probing voyages down the Pacific coast to the seizure of Atahualpa, the fall of Cuzco and the bitter civil wars among the conquerors themselves. He worked, nearly blind, from manuscript copies gathered in Spain.
Published in 1847 as the companion to his Conquest of Mexico, it remains one of the most readable narrative histories written in America. Download the free EPUB.