Volume 23, Number 4 · March 18, 1976
Ancient Incas and Modern Revolution
By Robert M. Adams
High, sparse, cruel, and cold—cut off to the east by desperate jungles and to the west by deserts, swamps, and the vast Pacific ocean—the altiplano of the Andes range seems like grim country to serve as the cradle of a great civilization. Yet 500 years ago the imperial socialist state of the Incas flourished here, till its extinction by the Spanish marauders of Pizarro. In the minds of South Americans it still lives, providing for modern nations an example of indigenous culture and economic self-sufficiency. Whether this is an inspiring or a delusive idea depends on a great many complex judgments, which change from day to day. Peru, the center and original source of Inca power, has been the chief country to feel this influence from the past. It is also now in an anxious halfway stage with its own revolution, which is moving either forward or backward, nobody can be sure, but certainly precariously, along a path lined with more than Andean declivities.
Feature, 6684 words
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