Framing a Lost City: Science, Photography, and the Making of Machu Picchu

An "engaging" study of Machu Picchu's transformation from ruin to World Heritage site, and the role a National Geographic photo feature played (Latin American Research Review).

When Hiram Bingham, a historian from Yale University, first saw Machu Picchu in 1911, it was a ruin obscured by overgrowth whose terraces were farmed by a few families. A century later, Machu Picchu is a UNESCO World Heritage site visited by more than a million tourists annually. This remarkable transformation bega...