The Peru Reader

Unparalleled in scope, "The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics" 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. Sixteenth-century Spanish soldiers described Peru as a land filled with gold and silver, a place of untold wealth. Nineteenth-century travellers 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 travelled 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 book offers an even deeper understanding of the complex country that lies behind these claims. "The Peru Reader", edited by Orin Starn, Carlos Iván Degregori and Robin Kirk, presents a vast collection of essays, folklore, historical documents, poetry, songs, short stories, autobiographical accounts, and photographs.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 traveller and specialist alike with a thorough introduction to the country's astonishing past and challenging present. It is a highly readable book; do not be put off by the sheer size of it. “A livelier, more literate introduction to a foreign world could not be hoped for. A Peruvian trove, indeed; so much that one hardly knows where to begin dipping into its treasures.” _Alma Guillermoprieto_, author of “Dancing with Cuba: A Memoir of the Revolution” “This is an extremely deep, broad, and insightful collection on Peru.” _Jorge Castañeda_, author of “Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left after the Cold War and former Foreign Minister of Mexico“ *About the editors:* *Orin Starn* is Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. *Carlos Iván Degregori* is Professor of Anthropology at the National University of San Marcos in Lima and also served on Peru's government-appointed Truth and Reconciliation Commission *Robin Kirk* is Co-director of the Human Rights Initiative at Duke University.