Inca Apocalypse offers a finely written, twenty-first century retelling of the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire that is self-consciously reflexive about its orientation and goals. Recognizing that historical narratives reflect the values and attitudes of their day, Covey explicitly centers his story around the moral equivalencies of European and Native American empires, the historicity of race and race-making, the incertitude of imperial endeavors, and current end-of-times anxieties. Given these commitments, he widens the geographical, temporal, and political scope of his account to contextualize the well-known tale of New World conquest, exploitation, and colonization better. The resulting volume can be viewed as the legitimate successor to John Hemming’s Conquest of the Incas (Boston, 1970) and its nineteenth-century predecessor, William Prescott’s History of the Conquest of Peru (New York, 1847).Covey chose the religious concept of apocalypse as both the title and the leitmotif of his book to “reveal how different people interpreted the world-changing events in which they participated” (29). In telling an apocalyptic history of the Spanish conquest of the Andes, he aims to give equal consideration and validity to the worldviews and rationalities of both European and Andean peoples. The first part of the volume (Chapters 1–4) treats the Inca and the Spanish realms separately, providing background about political and religious conditions during the fifteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic. The emblematic encounter of 1532 between the Inca Atahualpa and Francisco Pizarro in Cajamarca, the focus of Chapters 5–6, constitutes the fulcrum of the narrative. Following this episode, the remainder of the book (Chapters 7–12) merges the history of the various Inca and Spanish personages and factions into one complex, intertwined strand that stretches through 1650.Although Covey is an Andeanist by training, well-versed in the archaeology of the Inca realm, his narrative is based primarily on traditional ethnohistoric sources. The first chapter paints a basic portrait of the Inca Empire in terms of historical origins, political organization, and imperial aspirations. Although it incorporates some archaeological data, the presentation relies heavily on standard textual information, as does Chapter 3, which outlines the history of Inca imperial expansion. Chapters 2 and 4 provide parallel discussions of the European side, highlighting the connection of religious devotion to political ends, as forged by Iberian kings; the reconquest of the peninsula; and the developing imperial ambitions of the Catholic rulers of Spain. Throughout these chapters, Covey draws subtle analogies between Inca and Spanish practices—for instance, the Catholic veneration of saintly relics and the Inca maintenance of mummified kings, the markings of sacred places on the landscape (via shrines and churches in Spain and as huacas in the Andes), and stories of supernatural interventions (like, Pachacuti’s defeat of the Chanca and El Cid’s triumph over the Moors). The effect of these comparisons is to reduce the oft-emphasized “otherness” of the Inca vis-à-vis sixteenth-century Europeans.In this story of the violent collision of worlds, Covey makes every effort—through the detailed recounting of myriad miscalculations, calamities, and chance events—to suggest that the Spanish conquest of the Andes was not a teleological imperative or a foregone conclusion. He offers vivid descriptions of a variety of Spanish protagonists—including royals, clergy, conquistadores, and government officials, as well as some of the key Inca figures—that highlight their disparate motives and the non-linear and lengthy processes of conquest and subjugation. Although he is mindful of the subalterns—offering insights into the role of Inca women both before and after the Spanish incursion and at least calling out the presence of enslaved Africans in the saga—the narrative is nonetheless weighted toward the histories of the European men involved within a traditional framework. Even a reliance on textual sources, however, need not have precluded an attempt to incorporate indigenous perspectives on the Inca apocalypse. Titu Cusi Yupanqui, for instance, dictated his understanding of how the world had been turned upside down from his stronghold in Vilcabamba in 1570, and O’Toole’s modern histories excavate the voices of many colonial-era subalterns in the Andes.1 Aside from this critique, Inca Apocalypse offers a well-written, colorfully descriptive, and highly accessible account of a key moment of cultural convergence in world history that helps ground our understanding of the production of race and the ongoing impacts of colonialism.
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Feb 13, 2024
Rubens Barros De Souza 
Open Access