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Highway of the Sun
This book was digitized and reprinted from the collections of the University of California Libraries. It was produced from digital images created through the libraries’ mass digitization efforts. The digital images were cleaned and prepared for printing through automated processes. Despite the cleaning process, occasional flaws may still be present that were part of the original work itself, or introduced during digitization. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found online in the HathiTrust Digital Library at www.hathitrust.org.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1955
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About the author
Victor Wolfgang von Hagen
144 books14 followersVictor Wolfgang von Hagen (February 29, 1908 - March 8, 1985) was a US-American explorer, archaeological historian, anthropologist, and travel writer who traveled the South Americas with his wife, Christine. Mainly between 1940 and 1965, he published a large number of widely acclaimed books about the ancient people of the Inca, Maya, and Aztecs.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
November 25, 2017
"Wow! Intrepid Explorer Traces Ancient Roads"
When I was a kid, foreign places fascinated me, though I never went anywhere. I didn't distinguish serious books from those about adventures; all were grist for my insatiable mill. I remember loving Frank Buck's exploits in Southeast Asia and India, catching animals to be shipped off to zoos and the Johnsons' tales of filming in Africa and Melanesia. ("I Married Adventure", "Four Years in Paradise"). I was enthralled by Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet" and even own an autographed copy. I thrilled to the adventures of Roy Chapman Andrews in Mongolia and Leonard Clark in Sinkiang and the Tibetan boondocks. ("The Marching Wind") and in the Amazon ("The Rivers Ran East"). Then there was Slavomir Rawicz' "The Longest Walk" from Siberia to India, and Agnes Newton Keith's tales of Borneo ("Land Below the Wind" and the sad "Three Came Home"). In later years I discovered "An African in Greenland" by Tete-Michel Kpomassie and Francis Parkman's older "The Oregon Trail". And of course, let's not forget "Kontiki". All of these, in some way, depict travels in faroff lands under difficult conditions. Well, when I was a kid, everything was interesting and I didn't have any critical faculty. I read von Hagen's work at that time too. Recently, some 57 years later, I re-read HIGHWAY OF THE SUN and realized that unlike most of the others, von Hagen was well-financed, well-equipped, and supported by the Peruvian government itself (with letters to show in any case, with official friends in high places). He and his team collected over $50,000 in grants back in the US (multiply by at least ten to get today's value) and drove around the admittedly rough Peruvian mountains and deserts trying to determine the routes, construction methods, and reasons for the Inca roads built before the arrival of the Spaniards in the 1530s.
Now, I realize that von Hagen was an expert journalist and knew how to convince people his adventures were important. While he did contribute some knowledge to the study of Inca roads, this book is more a story of the two years of driving around Peru. Thrilling moments at the edge of cliffs, in the blindingly hot deserts, or with (possible) bandits...occasional small passages indicate a less than egalitarian attitude towards the locals. He took guns with him, his alcohol was impounded at the port on arrival, and we find out more about his vehicles than about the other members of the team. There are a number of good black and white photographs and some maps, but having read other books on the Inca period I have to wonder what, if anything, all this actually contributed. He found, on land and through aerial survey, the remains of many roads. But were they not already known ? Perhaps people ignored them because they resembled the other thousands of miles of roads. He had archaeologists with him, but we don't find out a single thing about what they did except "collect potsherds". I wondered what the actual relationships were on this team. The Incas indeed built an amazing system of roads, which were highly praised even by the conquistadors. In sum, this book thrilled me when I was twelve. It's not so hot today.
When I was a kid, foreign places fascinated me, though I never went anywhere. I didn't distinguish serious books from those about adventures; all were grist for my insatiable mill. I remember loving Frank Buck's exploits in Southeast Asia and India, catching animals to be shipped off to zoos and the Johnsons' tales of filming in Africa and Melanesia. ("I Married Adventure", "Four Years in Paradise"). I was enthralled by Harrer's "Seven Years in Tibet" and even own an autographed copy. I thrilled to the adventures of Roy Chapman Andrews in Mongolia and Leonard Clark in Sinkiang and the Tibetan boondocks. ("The Marching Wind") and in the Amazon ("The Rivers Ran East"). Then there was Slavomir Rawicz' "The Longest Walk" from Siberia to India, and Agnes Newton Keith's tales of Borneo ("Land Below the Wind" and the sad "Three Came Home"). In later years I discovered "An African in Greenland" by Tete-Michel Kpomassie and Francis Parkman's older "The Oregon Trail". And of course, let's not forget "Kontiki". All of these, in some way, depict travels in faroff lands under difficult conditions. Well, when I was a kid, everything was interesting and I didn't have any critical faculty. I read von Hagen's work at that time too. Recently, some 57 years later, I re-read HIGHWAY OF THE SUN and realized that unlike most of the others, von Hagen was well-financed, well-equipped, and supported by the Peruvian government itself (with letters to show in any case, with official friends in high places). He and his team collected over $50,000 in grants back in the US (multiply by at least ten to get today's value) and drove around the admittedly rough Peruvian mountains and deserts trying to determine the routes, construction methods, and reasons for the Inca roads built before the arrival of the Spaniards in the 1530s.
Now, I realize that von Hagen was an expert journalist and knew how to convince people his adventures were important. While he did contribute some knowledge to the study of Inca roads, this book is more a story of the two years of driving around Peru. Thrilling moments at the edge of cliffs, in the blindingly hot deserts, or with (possible) bandits...occasional small passages indicate a less than egalitarian attitude towards the locals. He took guns with him, his alcohol was impounded at the port on arrival, and we find out more about his vehicles than about the other members of the team. There are a number of good black and white photographs and some maps, but having read other books on the Inca period I have to wonder what, if anything, all this actually contributed. He found, on land and through aerial survey, the remains of many roads. But were they not already known ? Perhaps people ignored them because they resembled the other thousands of miles of roads. He had archaeologists with him, but we don't find out a single thing about what they did except "collect potsherds". I wondered what the actual relationships were on this team. The Incas indeed built an amazing system of roads, which were highly praised even by the conquistadors. In sum, this book thrilled me when I was twelve. It's not so hot today.
Displaying 1 of 1 review