The first full-length study to treat both parts of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega's foundational text <i>Royal Commentaries of the Incas</i> as a seminal work of political thought in the formation of the early Americas and the early-modern period. It is also among a handful of studies to explore the Commentaries as a "mestizo rhetoric," written to subtly address both native Andean readers and Hispano-Europeans.