Alan Covey has transformed the image of the Spanish occupation of the vast scattered domains of the Inca Empire, from a simple triumph of European technologies (and diseases), into a prolonged, and multi-faceted series of conquests that were not only military but also political, ecological, and, above all, religious. His book could well help to provide a model for a more nuanced account of European conquests in other parts of the globe.
R. Alan Covey is a professor of anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin, and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History.