Description

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2023 Book Award, Society for American Archaeology

A dramatic reappraisal of the Inka Empire through the lens of Qullasuyu.

The Inka conquered an immense area extending across five modern nations, yet most English-language publications on the Inka focus on governance in the area of modern Peru. This volume expands the range of scholarship available in English by collecting new and notable research on Qullasuyu, the largest of the four quarters of the empire, which extended south from Cuzco into contemporary Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile.

From the study of Qullasuyu arise fresh theoretical perspectives that both complement and challenge what we think we know about the Inka. While existing scholarship emphasizes the political and economic rationales underlying state action, Rethinking the Inka turns to the conquered themselves and reassesses imperial motivations. The book’s chapters, incorporating more than two hundred photographs, explore relations between powerful local lords and their Inka rulers; the roles of nonhumans in the social and political life of the empire; local landscapes remade under Inka rule; and the appropriation and reinterpretation by locals of Inka objects, infrastructure, practices, and symbols. Written by some of South America’s leading archaeologists, Rethinking the Inka is poised to be a landmark book in the field.

About the Author

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Frances M. Hayashida is a professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico and the director of the Latin American and Iberian Institute.

Andrés Troncoso is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chile.

Diego Salazar is an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chile.

Praise For…

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Rethinking the Inka is a fabulous book. Wide-ranging but well focussed, this volume presents...a roll call of the best, established, present-day researchers working on Qullasuyu archaeology; crucially, aside from Frances Hayashida, all the contributors are South American, lending that all-important regional perspective to the articles. Indeed, the editors should be commended on such a diverse and theoretically engaged group.
— Antiquity

My summary of this outstanding volume cannot do justice to all the scholars involved. The editors generously committed to presenting original, exceptional investigations conducted on Qullasuyu’s periphery by South American scholars. Rethinking the Inka is an engaging, high-quality collective collection that should be on the shelves of every university library and of researchers interested in the Inca empire and its aftermaths.
— Hispanic American Historical Review