3 Quotes by Kim MacQuarrie

The Incas, although an authoritarian monarchy, had succeeded nevertheless during their short reign not only in creating a massive empire, but perhaps more importantly in guaranteeing all of the empire’s millions of inhabitants the basic necessities of life: adequate food, water, and shelter. It was an achievement that no subsequent government – Spanish or Peruvian – has attained since.

In Spanish culture in the sixteenth century, the ages between thirty and forty-five were considered the prime years for men, that is, those were the years in which a man was considered to be both mature and to have the most energy.

The Incas’ genius – like that of the Romans – lay in their masterful organizational abilities. Amazingly, an ethnic group that probably never exceeded 100,000 individuals was able to regulate the activities of roughly ten million people. This was in spite of the fact that the empire’s citizens spoke more than seven hundred local languages and were distributed among 2,500 miles of some of the most rugged and diverse terrain on earth.