The Conquest of the Incas

high-altitude archaeologist Constanza Cerruti,

What made the Aztec Empire so vulnerable to Spanish attack, it has been argued, was the inability of its high command to grasp the origins, aims and motives of their European enemy or to imagine the reasons for its sudden appearance. The result was paralysing mental disorientation which destroyed the Aztec emperor’s capacity to resist.

In the Inca lands, wrote Pedro de Cieza de Léon, law and order were carefully maintained, with great care taken “to see that justice was meted out and that nobody ventured to commit a felony or theft.”64 Data was collected annually across the Inca Empire to make sure taxes were calculated correctly and fairly paid, with births and deaths recorded c