Craig Morris

Adriana Von Hagen

The largest empire of pre-Columbian America was toppled in under a decade by a handful of Spanish invaders who looted the fabled riches of its greatest city, Cuzco, and severed its 15,000 mile system of roads. But this Inca empire was only the final link in a chain of urban development stretching back to 2500 B.C. How did cities evolve in the ancient Andes? What were they like to live in and work in? Who built them, and how do we know? In ancient Peru and Bolivia the stark juxtapositions of parched desert, rugged mountain valleys, high and windswept plateaux, and tropical foothills gave birth to a series of cultures with religious and economic values a world away from our own. Tracing the oscillation of cultural leadership between desert and highlands, the authors show how village settlements gave way to religious centers, how these developed into cities, and how city states became empires. Vignettes of the lives of individuals--the leader of a llama caravan (the truck-driver of Chavin times), a delivery boy in the city of Chan Chan, and an Inca sacrificial victim among them--vividly supplement the archaeological narrative and help convey the importance of ceremony in Andean life. Discussions of topics as varied as acoustics at Chavin de Huintar, hydrology in the Nazca valley, the Sacrifice Ceremony in Lambayeque, and sacred geography in Tiwanaku are complemented by the latest evidence from archaeological excavations throughout the Andes.

The Cities of the Ancient Andes

Miguel León-Portilla

Martin Kemp

National Gallery of Art (U.S.)

Jonathan Brown

Michael D. Coe

Stuart Cary Welch

J. H. Elliott

Richard Kagan

Giulio Carlo Argan

David Woodward

Irving Rouse

Luís de Albuquerque

Martin Collcutt

Jean Michel Massing

J. J. Martín González

Ezio Bassani

J. Michael Rogers

Julian Raby

Francis Maddison

Sherman E. Lee

Gari Ledyard

F. W. Mote

José Juan Arrom

James E. Brown

Warwick Bray

Surveys the art of the Age of Exploration in Europe, the Far East, and the Americas

Art in the Age of Exploration

Circa 1492

Arne Jungjohann

This book outlines how Germans convinced their politicians to pass laws allowing citizens to make their own energy, even when it hurt utility companies to do so. It traces the origins of the Energiewende movement in Germany from the Power Rebels of Schönau to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s shutdown of eight nuclear power plants following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. The authors explore how, by taking ownership of energy efficiency at a local level, community groups are key actors in the bottom-up fight against climate change. Individually, citizens might install solar panels on their roofs, but citizen groups can do much more: community wind farms, local heat supply, walkable cities and more. This book offers evidence that the transition to renewables is a one-time opportunity to strengthen communities and democratize the energy sector – in Germany and around the world.

Germany’s Energiewende to Renewables

Energy Democracy

This survey provides an account of the Incas: their politics, economics, religion, architecture, art, and technology. The authors look in detail at the capital Cusco and at the four parts of the empire, exploring not just famous sites such as Machu Picchu but all the major regional settlements. The book concludes with the end of the empire: the arrival of the Spaniards, the assassination of the Inca ruler Atawallpa, and the final years of the rebellious, neo-Inca state in the tropical forests of Vilcabamba. --From publisher's description.

The Incas

Craig Morris

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