Warriors of the Clouds: A Lost Civilization in the Upper Amazon of Peru

Historians and archaeologists, suggests Keith Muscutt, have done an excellent job of recording the achievements of great pre-Columbian civilizations such as that of the Inca, which at its height covered an area the size of its Roman counterpart. They have done less well in understanding the histories of the empires that came before, the local strongholds and fiefdoms swallowed up by the mighty civilizations that the Europeans encountered. Muscutt takes us into the heart of one such ancient civilization, the Chachapoya, nestled in the high Andes of far eastern Peru. The area is remote and nearly inaccessible (one conquistador wrote that "the natural difficulty of the countryside is so rugged that on some roads the Indians slide down great ropes a distance of eight or ten times the height of a man, for there is no other way of advancing") for which reason scholars have been late in coming to it. Muscutt's heavily illustrated, inviting text helps place the Chachapoya empire in the larger context of Andean prehistory. --Gregory McNamee