Six years after the fall of Mexico, the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, exploring south of the equator, uncovers another civilization unknown to the European world: the empire of the Incas, which extended 3,000 miles from Ecuador to Chile. Michael Wood recounts Pizarro's daring march into Peru with fewer than 200 men and tells the almost incredible tale of his capture of the Inca Atuahuallpa and his promise to ransom himself with a roomful of gold. Traveling across the Peruvian desert along ancient Inca roads, Wood climbs the Andes with a train of llamas, continues to the ancient city of Cuzco, the Incas' "navel of the earth," where massive Inca buildings still stand, and to the stupendous Sacred Valley ruins, including Macchu Picchu. Telling the story of the Inca resistance, and using Inca accounts discovered only in modern times, Wood journeys on over the passes of the high Andes, up 17,000-foot glaciers and finally down into tropical rainforests on an epic trek to the lost city of the Incas, their last refuge, at Vilcabamba, which was identified only 30 years ago.

• Michael Wood