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ktapiero 's review for:
I wanted to read this book because I'm working on a project about hiking Machu Picchu and this is one of the leading books in the field. I will say this book has a ton of research, and some of it was very helpful which is why I gave it two stars.
But mostly, this book is colonialist propaganda. You can probably already tell just from the subtitle, "Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time." The jokes overall were pretty bad, even offensive at times. He normalizes a lot of the negative effects tourists like him have on Peru -- underpaid worker strikes, how Aguas Calientes became a tourist town for visitors to Machu Picchu, overpriced quinoa, and more.
What made me most angry is that the author is irrationally obsessed with Hiram Bingham, who in my opinion has no redeeming qualities. He's an outspoken racist who got credit for "discovering" Machu Picchu, a trek only possible by his generations of wealth privilege made on other racist endeavors of his family (including trying to Christianize Hawaii). In the book it even says, "Money wasn't a serious factor since Alfreda's parents [his in-laws] provided free housing and a $10,000 annual allowance--about five times the yearly salary of an assistant professor." To this day, the artifacts he stole have not been returned to Peru.
And yet despite the continued glorification of Bingham and his journey throughout the book (and the author's pride as he uncovers his own "Bingham-like tendencies"), he judges people for believing in Incan mysticism? This double standard makes no sense.
The saving grace of this book is when he meets up with Eliane Karp-Toledo, which is the only time I felt like Bingham was actually critiqued and in response, the author asks "could she think of anything nice to say about Bingham?" THE NERVE OF THIS GUY...
But mostly, this book is colonialist propaganda. You can probably already tell just from the subtitle, "Rediscovering the Lost City One Step at a Time." The jokes overall were pretty bad, even offensive at times. He normalizes a lot of the negative effects tourists like him have on Peru -- underpaid worker strikes, how Aguas Calientes became a tourist town for visitors to Machu Picchu, overpriced quinoa, and more.
What made me most angry is that the author is irrationally obsessed with Hiram Bingham, who in my opinion has no redeeming qualities. He's an outspoken racist who got credit for "discovering" Machu Picchu, a trek only possible by his generations of wealth privilege made on other racist endeavors of his family (including trying to Christianize Hawaii). In the book it even says, "Money wasn't a serious factor since Alfreda's parents [his in-laws] provided free housing and a $10,000 annual allowance--about five times the yearly salary of an assistant professor." To this day, the artifacts he stole have not been returned to Peru.
And yet despite the continued glorification of Bingham and his journey throughout the book (and the author's pride as he uncovers his own "Bingham-like tendencies"), he judges people for believing in Incan mysticism? This double standard makes no sense.
The saving grace of this book is when he meets up with Eliane Karp-Toledo, which is the only time I felt like Bingham was actually critiqued and in response, the author asks "could she think of anything nice to say about Bingham?" THE NERVE OF THIS GUY...