The Discovery and Conquest of Peru by Agustin de Zarate. New York. 1968. Penguin Books. Translated from the Spanish & With An Introduction by J. M. Cohen. 282 pages. paperback. L202. The cover shows a detail from a sixteenth-century map in the Bibliotheque du Ministers des Armees, Paris (Snark International).

  
DESCRIPTION - There is no full eye-witness account of the Spaniards' dramatic defeat of the Incas. For this new compilation, therefore, J. M. Cohen has translated the best contemporary history - that of Agustin de Zarate - and embellished it with firsthand descriptions of the country and the extraordinary exploits of the conquistadors. These graphic additions turn Zarate's history, with its careful record of the discovery and conquest of Peru and of the subsequent civil wars, into a rounded and continuous narrative which does justice to the landings, the heroic marches across the mountains, Atahuallpa's death, and the incredible harvest of treasure.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY - Agustín de Zárate (1514-1585) was an administrator, chronicler, and Spanish historian. For fifteen years he was an accountant for the Council of Castile and in 1543 was appointed accountant for the Viceroyalty of Peru and Tierra Firme. He arrived in Peru in 1544. In 1545 he returned to Spain where he faced an accusation of treason, because of the history that he wrote of the discovery and conquest of Peru. In 1555 Agustín de Zárate was assigned to a job within the fiscal administration and settled in Guadalcanal (Seville), where he monitored Spain's important silver mines that had just been discovered in that locality.

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