Just Announced: The Children's & YA Book Awards Winners Explore Now

The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time

Add to Wishlist

The Secret of the Incas: Myth, Astronomy, and the War Against Time

Paperback(REPRINT)

$23.00

Paperback(REPRINT)
$23.00

SHIP THIS ITEM

Qualifies for Free Shipping
PICK UP IN STORE
Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Available within 2 business hours

Want it Today?
Check Store Availability

Related collections and offers

Overview

Step by step, Sullivan pieces together the hidden esoteric tradition of the Andes to uncover the tragic secret of the Incas, a tribe who believed that, if events in the heavens could influence those on earth, perhaps the reverse could be true. Anyone who reads this book will never look at the ruins of the Incas, or at the night sky, the same way again. Illustrations.

Product Details
About the Author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780517888513
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/20/1997
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	302,296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

William Sullivan holds a BA from Harvard College and a doctorate from the Centre of Amerindian, Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of St. Andrews. He lives in Massachusetts.

From the B&N Reads Blog

Page 1 of

Editorial Reviews

A sometimes murky, frequently meandering excursion into the meaning of ancient Andean beliefs, arguing that in a series of sophisticated myths Incan soothsayers foretold their own civilization's doom at the hands of Pizarro and his conquistadors in 1532.
Sullivan, a scholar of Native American cultures, begins with a question that has perplexed historians of the Spanish conquest: How could the vast Inca Empire, with its millions of subjects, have been conquered overnight by a band of 170 Spanish adventurers? Sullivan digs into the history and mythology of Andean civilization to find what he feels is the answer: For hundreds of years the sages of the Andes had believed that astronomical transitions presaged earthly cataclysms; reading changes in the night skies in the 1400s, Incan priest-astronomers foretold the imminent destruction of their own recently founded empire. Sullivan argues, in a sometimes hyperbolic first-person account ("In that moment I had, I believed, touched for an instant the terrible burden and tragic urgency of the Inca vision"), that the Incas followed the planets, recorded precessional events in their myths, and equated social and celestial changes. He further asserts that elements in Incan culture preceding Pizarro's arrival—constant warfare and the Incan ritual of human sacrifice—represented an attempt to halt the march of time and prevent the apocalyptic events foreshadowed by changes in the night sky. The Incas assumed that the arrival of Pizarro represented the culmination of the prophecy and the failure of their own efforts to prevent its occurrence.
The thread of the author's argument can be hard to follow. Still, Sullivan's deep feeling for Andean folk materials, and the originality of his observations about Andean astronomy, make his text worthwhile for those interested in the history of South American civilization and for those who, in the wake of Joseph Campbell's works, seek enduring meaning in ancient mythology.

Kirkus Reviews

Related collections and offers

Overview

Product Details

About the Author

Related Subjects

Customer Reviews