Inca apocalypse : the Spanish conquest and the transformation of the Andean world / R. Alan Covey.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"This book describes a period of several decades during the sixteenth century, when conquistadores, Catholic friars, and imperial officials attempted to conquer the Inca Empire and impose Spanish colonial rule. When Francisco Pizarro captured the Inca warlord Atahuallpa at Cajamarca in 1532, European Catholics and Andean peoples interpreted the event using long-held beliefs about how their worlds would end, and what the next era might look like. The Inca world did not end at Cajamarca, despite some popular misunderstandings of the Spanish conquest of Peru. In the years that followed, some Inca lords resisted Spanish rule, but many Andean nobles converted to Christianity and renegotiated their sovereign claims into privileges as Spanish subjects. Catholic empire took a lifetime to establish in the Inca world, and it required the repeated conquest of rebellious conquistadores, the reorganization of native populations, and the economic overhaul of diverse Andean landscapes. These disruptive processes of modern world-building carried forward old ideas about sovereignty, social change, and human progress. Although overshadowed by the Western philosophies and technologies that drive our world today, those apocalyptic relics remain with us to the present"-- Provided by publisher.