Realm of The Incas [Idioma Inglés] - Tapa dura

Realm of the Incas is a journey from the sacred snows of the Andes to the pristine reserves of the Amazon rainforest – a region that not only passes through eight distinctive climates and habitats, but also includes the major Inca ruins and Spanish colonial architecture seen by visitors to Peru.

Max Milligan spent five years in Peru during the late ’80s and early ’90s, during which time he took several thousand photographs. Since then he has worked as a professional photographer, mainly in London; he uses tripod-mounted Leicas, which give superb image quality. His long-held ambition has been to return to Peru to shoot the definitive photographic book about the Inca region. No book at present covers this territory as a whole; there are pamphlet guides to Machu Picchu and specialist tomes on the jungle, festivals and architecture, but there is a yawning gap in the market for a book that provides a photographic overview of the region, an area to which 90 percent of foreign visitors to Peru restrict their journeys.

Milligan spent all of the year 2000 in Peru, photographing both wet and dry seasons plus the major religious and cultural festivals. His subject matter is every aspect of the area: geographical, historical (both Inca and Spanish colonial), cultural and social events, flora and fauna from the glaciers to the jungle, and any other aspects of daily life in this fabled region.

In addition to Max’s lively commentary in his text and captions, the book has a foreword of around 2,000 words by John Hemming, much-lauded author of The Conquest of the Incas, unquestionably the definitive book on the subject and described by The Times as ‘a superbly vivid history distinguished by formidable scholarship’.

Realm of the Incas will be the definitive book about the area, and its backlist life will be a long one. Tourism in Latin America is on the up. At present almost half a million people visit Machu Picchu each year – it is the most visited site in South America, and with the recent purchase by the Orient Express Group of the Machu Picchu train from Cuzco, this number can only grow.

Max Milligan was born in 1965. He first visited Peru with Operation Raleigh in 1985; he returned in 1986 and set up Cuzco’s illustrious Cross Keys pub. While in Peru he worked on documentaries for the BBC and National Geographic; he also led expeditions for many of the largest travel agencies and with his knowledge of Quechua befriended cooks, muleskinners and trail cutters, becoming godfather to a number of Indian children. His first book Circles of Stone (Harvill, 1999) has received widespread critical acclaim.