Notes on Prescott’s Interpretation of the Conquest of Peru
ARL THEN William H. Prescott dated the Preface of his V llHistory of the Conquest of Peru on April 2, 1847, he could scarcely have imagined that the work he had just completed would still exert a strong appeal more than a ,century later. Its distinguished place in Peruvian bibliography and its position as a landmark of historical literature remain secure today. It is a classic among works dealing with the Peruvian past. Not only did it outstrip its predecessors; its appearance was hailed by such authorities as Don Andr's Bello,1 and it has continued to be acclaimed ever since. A literary work is not lightly ranked as a classic. To achieve that rank, it must pass a long test of time, which operates on it like a cleansing wind, stripping it of all that is transient and leaving only what is firm and enduring. Only after long trials will a classic acquire that permanent quality that it must possess, in defiance of short-term fashions and styles. The impress left by the History of the Conquest of Peru is an ineradicable one. I think it unnecessary to comment here on personal considerations unrelated to the purely scientific quality of Prescott's work, for its position is unaffected by extraneous factors. No reader, nevertheless, can be insensitive to the dramatic circumstances surrounding its writing or to the unfortunate condition of its author, deprived of his sight for long periods and facing the prospect of inevitable blindness. It is no exaggeration to assert that with the History of the Conquest of Peru by this Boston historian a new concept of the conquest phase of Peruvian history came into being. The conquest became a theme integrated to a larger environment and examined in accordance with modern standards. Beside the dreary academism of