The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics (Latin America Readers)

Sixteenth-century Spanish soldiers described Peru as a land filled with gold and silver, a place of untold wealth. Nineteenth-century travelers wrote of soaring Andean peaks plunging into luxuriant Amazonian canyons of orchids, pythons, and jaguars. The early-twentieth-century American adventurer Hiram Bingham told of the raging rivers and the wild jungles he traversed on his way to rediscovering the “Lost City of the Incas,” Machu Picchu. Seventy years later, news crews from ABC and CBS traveled to Peru to report on merciless terrorists, starving peasants, and Colombian drug runners in the “white gold” rush of the coca trade. As often as not, Peru has been portrayed in broad extremes: as the land of the richest treasures, the bloodiest conquest, the most poignant ballads, and the most violent revolutionaries. This revised and updated second edition of the bestselling Peru Reader offers a deeper understanding of the complex country that lies behind these claims.

Unparalleled in scope, the volume covers Peru’s history from its extraordinary pre-Columbian civilizations to its citizens’ twenty-first-century struggles to achieve dignity and justice in a multicultural nation where Andean, African, Amazonian, Asian, and European traditions meet. The collection presents a vast array of essays, folklore, historical documents, poetry, songs, short stories, autobiographical accounts, and photographs. Works by contemporary Peruvian intellectuals and politicians appear alongside accounts of those whose voices are less often heard—peasants, street vendors, maids, Amazonian Indians, and African-Peruvians. Including some of the most insightful pieces of Western journalism and scholarship about Peru, the selections provide the traveler and specialist alike with a thorough introduction to the country’s astonishing past and challenging present.

Best deep cultural introduction to Peru I have found. This is NOT a travel guide, but an introduction to the "culture, politics and history" of the country as the title suggests. It lives up to its name. Especially useful if you get outside of Lima in your Peruvian visit. This has a permanent place in my library.

I know virtually nothing about Peru and I am going there for two weeks in August. This book was suggested as a thorough primer. It is proving to be just that...

Five stars for this book. After I returned from a six week trip to Peru, I was perplexed, astonished, and intrigued by so much that I saw and experienced there. I bought this book hoping it would answer some of my questions. On the contrary, it answered ALL of my questions and left me asking and wanting to read more. What a fascinating country and culture! I was a Latin American Studies major in college, and I learned an incredible amount from this book. I wouldn't recommend taking this book on your trip with you (it's quite large and heavy), but it would be a great intro to the country you're about to visit, or when you're back home missing your vacation, a great resource to dip into to remember and learn more about Peru. As another reviewer mentioned, I too wish there was such a book like this for every country I travel to! I will be reading this book again, and I highly recommend it to those who will be traveling to Peru, or to those armchair travelers who have an interest in Latin America.

this is an interesting collection of exerpts from books, articles, archives... for those interested in learning more about Peru's history and development. i would have liked to see bibliographical references for the selected materials.

Really good collection of a variety of excerpts from some interesting books. A lot of good poetry too; like Osman Morote's "A Frightening Thirst for Violence":

"The dictator

shifts his gaze

and a rose

acclaimed as fragrant

falls, in a slice,

from just one

beheading

The dictator

swivels his hands

and

one worker

falls, the wife of a

worker

falls, the children of a

worker

fall

Oh!

what a frightening thirst

for vengeance

devours me"

Morote became the second-in-command in the Shining Path, which the book treats even-handedly, except it does tend to leave out sufficient details of the kind of daily suffering due to exploitation and inequality that led people like Morote to sacrifice his life. The book does include testimony from a government soldier, casually discussing his rapes, murders and tortures, and mentions that during the war, far more people were killed by the government than by the rebels. Some surprise.

The best instance of a description of the kind of reality people lived in - terribly far away from the wealth and comfort of rich countries - that would explain a bit about why people would give up their lives in the Shining Path or the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement to create a better society: another poem, an excerpt from "The Battle of Ayacucho" by Antonio Cisneros, which strips of glory the decisive battle that won Peru independence from Spain:

"...

From a Mother

again

My sons and the rest of the dead still

belong to the owner of the horses

and the owner of the lands, and the battles.

A few apple trees grow among their bones

and the tough gorse. That's how they fertilize

this dark tilled land,

That's how they serve the owner

of war, hunger, and the horses."