Reviews
“No other book has focused so extensively on the oldest existing city in the Americas, and it fills a significant void in the study of pre-Hispanic urbanism. A magnificent accomplishment and model for other ancient urban studies. Summing Up: Essential.”
--Choice
"The first comprehensive scholarly text that uses archaeological data and historical descriptions to analyze the making, development, and urban life of Cuzco during the Inca period… [a] rich analysis.”
--Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 94, no. 2
“An urgently needed analysis of the city leading up to the Spanish conquest… makes many important contributions, especially by bringing to light previously unpublished data to develop a comprehensive picture of the Inka capital as a symbolically charged, yet functionally organized imperial center.”
--Journal of Anthropological Research
“The pioneering achievement of this book is the combination of archaeological, architectural, and archival-documentary sources, to reconstruct and understand the planning and function of the Inca capital, Cusco. Farrington’s book should be used not only as a sourcebook for the information available on the city of Cusco and its role as the capital of the Inca Empire, but also for its masterly combination of the techniques and methods by which the ancient functions of the city can be recovered: methods which could be applied elsewhere.”
--Anthropos
Provides both an essential documentation of the archaeology of Inka Cuzco and many ideas that will inform and spur future research.
--American Anthropologist
One of only a few attempts to provide an overview of this great city. . . .review[s] and present[s] for the first time some details on the vast number of projects conducted in the city by the Ministry over the past fifty years.
--The historian