Encyclopedia of the Incas

Inca specialists who have both worked for years studying and writing on various
aspects of this ancient South American civilization, we were intrigued by the
notion of producing an encyclopedia on the Incas. For one thing, we felt that the
existence of such a venerable scholarly instrument as an encyclopedia would
represent a validation of sorts, a marker of the maturity and increased
importance of Inca civilization and Inca studies in the eyes of the wider world.
It should be said that Inca studies have long taken a backseat to the far more
developed and expansive fields of study of the Maya and Aztec societies of pre-
Columbian Mesoamerica (modern-day Mexico and Central America). Those two
ancient American civilizations, both located reasonably close to the United
States, and therefore accessible to North American scholars, have attracted an
enormous amount of attention from Western scholars since the end of the
nineteenth century. In addition, both the Aztecs and the Maya possessed writing,
which means that we have statements and commentaries from people within
these societies about themselves and the world(s) they occupied. The Incas, on
the other hand, who occupied a region of the Americas located much farther
away from the economic and political (not to mention academic) centers of
North America, and who did not invent a system of writing, have long been
something of a step-child to their Mesoamerican counterparts. Despite these
circumstances, Inca studies have flourished over the past half century or so. It
may be of interest to the reader to consider how, when, and why this
“florescence” took place, and how it helped shape the contents of this
encyclopedia.
The mid-twentieth century witnessed tremendous growth in the number of
scholars studying the Incas as well as a broadening of the range of their national
origins, including (in addition to Latin America) North America, Europe,
Australia, and Japan. Some of the major scholarly figures of the past half
century, each of whom is represented by an entry in this encyclopedia, include
Franklin Pease and María Rostworowski in Peru, and John Murra, John Rowe,
and Tom Zuidema in the United States. Other researchers have certainly made
significant contributions to Inca studies during this period, but we believe that
one can argue that, based on the publications authored by the handful of scholars
mentioned above, as well as by the large number of PhD students produced by
several of them, these particular individuals have played critical roles in
stimulating a broadening and intensifying of Inca studies from the 1940s through
to the present day.