Cochineal Red: Travels Through Ancient Peru

Description

Peru wears its ancient cultures wrapped around in layers, like one of the mummified bodies so well preserved by the nitrates of its deserts. After his acclaimed book on the Incas, THE WHITE ROCK, Hugh Thomson unwraps those layers to show how civilisation emerged so early and so spectacularly in this toughest and most arid of terrains. Many of the extraordinary cultures of Ancient Peru, from the lines of Nasca to the temple-cult of Chavin, buried in the mountains and the great pyramids of the coast, have only started to give up their secrets and antiquity in just the last few years. Hugh Thomson has been at the forefront of some of these discoveries, having made headlines with his work near Machu Picchu. Now he takes the reader on a journey back from the world of the Incas to the first dawn of Andean civilisation, to give an immensely personal and accessible guide to the wonders that have been revealed.

Hugh Thomson read English at Cambridge University and worked briefly as a lecturer at Bristol University before becoming a film-maker. He has directed many feature-length documentaries for the BBC, including the award-winning Dancing in the Street - a Rock and Roll History. His films for television include the BBC's Great Journeys series about Cortez's invasion of Mexico and a series on India presented by William Dalrymple.

First and most importantly, Hugh Thomson is a good thing. It takes a rare combination of scholarly focus and Boy's Own derring-do to write books about adventuring in Peru (this is his third) which consistently rise above the level of backpackers' companions, and convey not only Thomsons' great knowledge of the ancient civilisations of the Andes, but also the thrill of the chase for such knowledge--Spectator History, archaeological puzzle-solving, ethnography and traveller's tales are combined in this account of Hugh Thomson's extensive travels through the principal sites of Ancient Peru, leading the reader on a dizzying tour through five turbulent millennia. The cumulative effect is enthralling--The Times