About the Author

John Hemming was Director of the Royal Geographic Society in London from 1975 to 1996. He has travelled throughout Peru and much of Amazonia on a series of surveying and environmental research expeditions, often in unexplored forests. He has probably visited more indigenous tribes than any other non-Brazilian, including four at the time of their first contact. In addition to The Conquest of the Incas, his sixteen books include Monuments of the Incas, The Search for El Dorado, a three-volume history of Brazil's indigenous peoples (Red Gold, Amazon Frontier, Die If You Must) and Tree of Rivers. For this work, Peru honored him with the El Sol del Per� award and the grand cross of the Order of Merit; Brazil gave him the Order of the Southern Cross; and Britain, the Order of St Michael and St George. He has a D. Litt doctorate from Oxford, and other honorary doctorates and fellowships. John Hemming is also chairman of a company publishing trade magazines and organizing trade exhibitions, and a trustee of various charities.