Sounds like you might be looking for something more positive but I just finished Last Days of the Incas, pretty astounding record of a society being ground out in one generation. http://www.amazon.com/The-Last-Days-Incas-MacQuarrie/dp/0743260503 It's almost impossible to fathom a force of 187 Spaniards crushing an army of 30,000 Inca with no casualties but it happened. Less than a thousand men dominated a society of some 10 million people. The book has left me contemplating greed, power, technology and culture in ways I haven't in quite some time.
It seems like an interesting story. I'll write it down and maybe get and read it sometime.
I haven't read that one, but I've read several others on the Conquest of South America (mostly Peru and Colombia), and I would recommend anyone who's interested in history or politics do the same. It's a fascinating investigation into power, greed, technology and culture, as you say, but also psychology and economics. It's another one of those events that's almost completely ignored in main stream history education, but shouldn't be.