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  • Colonial Andean Texts in English Translation
  • Luis Millones Figueroa (bio)
The First New Chronicle and Good Government, Abridged. By Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala. Selected, translated, and annotated by David Frye. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006. Pp. 376. $37.95 cloth, $13.95 paper.
Royal Commentaries of the Incas and General History of Peru, Abridged. By El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega. Translated by Harold V. Livermore. Edited, with an introduction, by Karen Spalding. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006. Pp. 232. $45.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.
The History of the Incas. By Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa. Translated and edited by Brian S. Bauer and Vania Smith. Introduction by Brian S. Bauer and Jean-Jacques Decoster. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007. Pp. 266. $19.95 paper.
An Inca Account of the Conquest of Peru. By Diego de Castro Titu Cusi Yupanqui. Translated, introduced, and annotated by Ralph Bauer. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2005. Pp. 166. $21.95 paper.
History of How the Spaniards Arrived in Peru. By Diego de Castro Titu Cusi Yupanqui. Dual-language edition. Translated, with an introduction, by Catherine Julien. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006. Pp. 2006. $45.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.
Titu Cusi: A 16th Century Account of the Conquest. By Diego de Castro Titu Cusi Yupanqui. Introduction, Spanish modernization, English [End Page 181] translation, and notes by Nicole Delia Legnani. Prologue by Frank Salomon. Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University, 2005. Pp. 218. $24.95 paper.

In Andean countries, the Incas are still held up today as ideal rulers who developed a state that successfully provided for the needs of its population across a vast empire. After all, it is almost impossible not to look back longingly at a government that let no one go hungry, ensured justice, and exemplified moral behavior. There is little doubt that El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega was responsible for giving form to this image and for carefully crafting it in a powerful narrative. After four hundred years, Royal Commentaries of the Incas (1609) enjoys the status of a classic and has been the constant object of studies that continue to shed light on the sophisticated thought and artful construction of Garcilaso's text. This work was first translated into English in 1688, but the standard English translation is that published in 1966 by Harold V. Livermore and reissued in 1987. Karen Spalding has taken this acclaimed translation of both Royal Commentaries and its less-often-read second part, General History of Peru, to produce an outstanding abridged version of the complete work aimed at undergraduate students but that is also appropriate for a learned general audience curious about Peru's Inca past and the Spanish conquest.

Spalding offers a careful selection of text reorganized into new thematic chapters under headings such as "Inca Society," "The Organization and Festivals of the Incas," "The Expedition to Peru and the Capture of the Inca," "Rebellion against the New Laws," and so on. Each selection begins by referencing the original book and chapter of Garcilaso's work, allowing readers to easily find the source (either in Livermore's original translation or in any Spanish edition). When necessary, before or between selections, Spalding adds a few explanatory lines that help the flow of the narrative. The text has some footnotes and is preceded by three maps. At a little more than two hundred pages, this is an excellent introduction to a classic of Latin American letters.

One key aspect of this edition is the incorporation of the second part of Royal Commentaries as an integral piece of Garcilaso's work rather than as a corollary. The second part was finished in 1612 and submitted to civil and religious officials for review. It was during this review that it was renamed General History of Peru as a condition for its approval. As Spalding explains in her introduction, Spanish officials tried to dissociate the comparisons that Garcilaso intended between the history of the Incas and the history of Spanish deeds in Inca lands. By editing both parts together and giving them equal space, Spalding enables readers to see how Garcilaso argued that the Inca leaders prepared Andean people for...

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