“The authors’ new survey and excavation work stands on its own, but it also makes an invaluable contribution to the growing literature on indigenous life in the early colonial Andes. From a historiographic perspective, Bauer and colleagues provide a complete overview of the essential early colonial sources as well as descriptions of twentieth- century expeditions in the region.”
  — R. Alan Covey, Hispanic American Historical Review, 2016

The sites of Vitcos and Espíritu Pampa are two of the most important Inca cities within the remote Vilcabamba region of Peru. The province has gained notoriety among historians, archaeologists, and other students of the Inca, since it was from here that the last independent Incas waged a nearly forty-year-long war (AD 1536–1572) against Spanish control of the Andes. Building on three years of excavation and two years of archival work, the authors discuss the events that took place in this area, speaking to the complex relationships that existed between the Europeans and Andeans during the decades that Vilcabamba was the final stronghold of the Inca empire. This has long been a topic of interest for the public; the results of the first large-scale, scientific research conducted in the region will be illuminating for scholars as well as for general readers who are enthusiasts of this period of history and archaeology.