Philip Ainsworth Means

author

Philip Ainsworth Means

1892–1944

A lively early American scholar of Peru and the Inca world, he helped bring South American history and archaeology to a wider English-speaking audience. His books blend field experience, historical curiosity, and a clear enthusiasm for the Andes.

1 Audiobook

History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Hard University. Vol. VII.

History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, Hard University. Vol. VII.

by Philip Ainsworth Means

About the author

Born in Boston in 1892, Philip Ainsworth Means was an American anthropologist, historian, and author best known for his work on South America, especially Peru and the Inca Empire. He studied at Harvard and made several extended trips to Peru, where he researched the Cuzco region, took part in excavations, and built a reputation as an energetic interpreter of Andean history.

Means also served as director of the National Museum of Archaeology in Lima in the early 1920s. Alongside his academic work, he wrote books for general readers as well as specialists, helping introduce many readers to the history, culture, and political world of the Andes.

He died in 1944, but his work remains part of the early English-language effort to explain pre-Columbian Peru with both scholarly care and a sense of adventure. Readers drawn to exploration, archaeology, and the deep history of the Americas may find his writing especially appealing.