In the book Francisco Pizarro and His Brothers: The Illusion of Power in Sixteenth-Century Peru, the author gives readers a look at the idea of power in Andean life during the 1500s. Although and exact point to his work is hard to pinpoint, Varon Gabai does say in his preface, " I believe it will be difficult henceforth to prepare a serious study on the Andes without including both the Hispanic and the Indian point of view. I have tried to do this here." Throughout the reading it seems that Rafael Varon Gabai's thesis would more specifically target the pragmatics of Hernando Pizarro.
The author assumes a lot of his audience's knowledge on the subject of the conquest era, and the Pizarro (especially Francisco's) conquests. This makes the reading almost unbearable for an undergraduate to compose a review of the book, because there is no background information provided by the writer on the aforementioned topics. However, after seeing through pages, which are thickly coated with minuscule cities and unimportant names and countless reference points, one can gather a few bits of information from Varon Gabai. While the title may suggest that Francisco would be the focal point of this writing it turns out to be more about his brother Hernando, "the most unruly and educated of the brothers" [p.44]. Hernando was the only son to come form their father's legitimate marriage, Francisco and his rebellious brother Gonzalo were from different illegitimate relationships.
The author divides the book into two parts, the first of which is the most difficult to read. Part I is entitled the "Dynamics of Conquest" and contains chapters one through five. The opening chapter labeled "Before the Conquest" is basically the ground work of the "Pizarrista organization,"(like a conquest company) which Mr. Gabai states was a two fold operation set up by Francisco. One part was entrepreneurship, which were the personal aspects of conquest and the other part that was political.
