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The Peru reader: history, culture, politics
Book Reviews
231
Guatemala’s colonial past and present inequalities. He chooses the vignette as his means of capturing the schizophrenia of self-sacrificing martyrdom, self-censoring inattention, and coldly self-serving survival that political terror instills. Part I focuses on portraits of Guatemalan Mayas-a Q’anjob’al refugee who shares Lovell’s house in Canada; Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta MenchC’s visit to his university; Victor Montejo’s testimony of village slaughter during the counter-insurgency war of the early 1980s; a K’iche’ widow’s search for the remains of her husband and son, ‘disappeared’ by local proxies of the army. In Part II, Love11 takes up the last 15 years of Guatemalan history through the newspaper clippings he has collected during his many visits there-dispassionate renderings of hideously disfigured corpses, empty elections and failed political ‘openings’, endemic ‘popular resistance’ and enduring military oppression. Part III concludes with a discussion of Guatemala’s history of conquest that still poisons relations between Mayas and (non-Indian) Ladinos with the racism that has always rationalised the conqueror’s dehumanisation and exploitation of the conquered. Gracefully written and heartfelt, this book seeks a middle ground between the righteous outrage of pro-revolutionary solidarity and the measured tones of scholarly inquiry. It also partakes of the recent post-modernism fashion of declaring writing in the ‘human sciences’ an inherently political act: Lovell’s preface acknowledges his abiding need to place himself within-and thus testify to-the political inquiries of the country where he does his scholarly research. In negotiating these multiple agendas, the book succeeds in different ways on different levels. Not surprisingly, Lovell’s accomplishments as a writer and historical demographer of colonial Guatemala craft the chapters on Guatemalan history into surely drawn set pieces-informative, nuanced, enlivened by judicious quotes from first-hand accounts. In contrast, his renderings of contemporary Guatemala remain more diffident, if neither doubtful nor disinterested, precisely because he also relies here on textsbooks, newspapers, or even the North Americanisms on second-hand tee-shirts worn by poor, mostly illiterate Guatemalans. His vignettes in Parts I and II work best when he touches on his own encounters travelling across rural Guatemala. One wishes for more of his conversations (or more likely, mutual silences) with Maya as they rode with him in his rented pickup. On another level, however, this distancing through the words of others replicates the indirection that actually pervades everyday life under political terror: omnipresent and absolute, arbitrary and call it, invokes the surreality of both unspoken, capricious, ‘the situation’, as Guatemalans unspeakable knowledge and unfathomable-at times, fatal-uncertainty. Perhaps only through passing vignettes and fragmented memories can we begin to grasp the fractured social reality that Guatemala has become. Love11heightens this, if somewhat ironically, given his characterisation of a too-often ‘timeless’ anthropology, by writing the contemporary history in Part II almost entirely in the ethnographic present. For those who know Guatemala, developments since the events he describes only intensify the paradoxical (because now literally untrue) truths of the bygone moments he perpetuates here. Love11 could have played more purposively on such diffidence, honing examples not only to affirm his personal testimony but also to bring his own muted, distanced renderings of terror more fully to the awareness of those not already familiar with places like Guatemala. Perhaps, in the end, his decision not to do so simply reflects the difference between the historian’s and ethnographer’s craft: ideally, the historian’s examples document, i.e. they attest to occurrences and outcomes; at their best, the ethnographer’s examples evoke, i.e. they capture in specific instances the multiple possibilities of what might have happened instead. Ultimately, this book is as much about the author’s personal relationship with Guatemala as it is about the country and its people. It laments the ambivalence felt by all who have worked or lived in that place at once so beautiful, yet so hurtful to the human spirit. John M. Watanabe Dartmouth College Carlos Ivan and Kirk, Robin (eds) (1995), The Peru Reader: History, Latin American Bureau, and Duke University Press (London and 531 pp. E14.99 pbk.
Starn, Orin, Degregori, Culture,
Durham).
Politics,
Providing an overview of a country’s history and society with a paradigm highlighting difference, diversity and the informal histories of ‘10s de abajo’, is not an easy task, not least when
238
Book Reviews
that country is Peru, where-despite being decentred, fractured and hybridised-these differences have often been overlain by nationalist histories and social myths. Yet this book triumphantly succeeds in drawing together these diverse threads in ways which, while not obscuring their origins, reveal a multi-faceted representation of this complex Andean country. The book is structured in 10 parts, each containing a collection of writings from varied sources and dates; for example, the second part on ‘Conquest and Colonnial Peru’ contains writings by the pro-indigenous cleric Bartolomt de las Casas, the historian Steve Stern, and the 19th century satirist Ricardo Palma. To collect these writings-many of which will be familiar to Peruvian scholars-together provides new insights into the period or topic under discussion, while also raising implicit questions about the agendas, authors and audiences for such texts. Yet the editors are quite clear that their purpose is not to facilely celebrate endless intertextuality; rather they seek to ‘augment traditional scholarship with other modes of criticism and analysis’ (p. 5). Rejecting relativism, they have collected a cross-disciplinary anthology--of necessity selectivebut where a ‘broad sampling of texts enriches even the narrowest of interests’ (p. 5). Initially following historical convention in Parts I and III, the book has sections on ‘Ancient Civilizations’, ‘Conquest and Colonial Rule’ and ‘Republican Peru’ which together make up the first half of the book. Here the choice of material is rich and illustrative, ranging from the Huarochiri manuscript through to Flora Tristan writing about the tupadus women in early Republican Lima. The second half of the book is structured in a less chronological fashion, after Part IV which focuses on the political ferment which characterised the 1920s and 1930s. The focus then rapidly shifts to the 1970s and beyond, with sections on ‘The Break-up of the Old Order’, ‘The Shining Path’ ‘Mu&ray Tiempo’ (referring to the ‘time of fear’ experienced by many, especially poor Andean peasants, during the military-Shining Path confrontations), ‘The Cocaine Economy’, ‘The Struggle for Survival and Neoliberalism’, and finally, in Part X, an overview of cultural trends entitled ‘Culture(s) Redefined’. To summarise the contents of each part is beyond the remit of a review, yet it is important to highlight the range, from songs such as the ‘Choncholi Chewing Gum Rap’ about a Peruvian woman moving to the United States, to a sociological account of a land-invasion on the outskirts of Lima, through to a journalistic account of the cocaine economy in the Huallaga valley. Each piece is prefaced by a shortusually one paragraph-editorial comment, which places the writing in context, explaining more about the author or the topic for a new reader. The introductory paragraphs are perhaps too brief for those whose knowledge of the subject is deep, but they provide an excellent ‘way-in’ for students or other newcomers. If I have one criticism of the presentation of the pieces, it is that there are no dates given for the pieces, a detail that can only give further contextual information to researchers and students. The sections on political violence, the drugs economy and the Shining Path are particularly harrowing and eye-opening, indicating, according to the editors, ‘the trends we believe will shape Peru well into the next century’ (p. 6). Certainly the tasks associated with the construction of new civil society, less riven by the violence and fear associated with militarisation and economic crisis, remain formidable. All in all, this anthology is an invaluable resource for teaching or-for those more familiar with Peru-for reminding us of the ‘other voices’ which make up the reality of the country, and of our partial knowledges of it. Given its good price, and its well-thought anthology of texts, it should be in every library where Latin America is studied. Sarah A. Radcliffe University of Cambridge Bethell, Leslie (ed.) (1996) Cambridge History of Latin America. Vol. 10. Latin America since 1930: Ideas, Culture and Society, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge). xiv + 645 pp. $70.00 hbk. The decision to devote an entire volume of the Cambridge History of Latin America to 20thcentury cultural history was a bold one, given the relatively uncharted nature (at least in English) of much of the territory explored here. As the editor hints in his preface, it was clearly an endeavour that required no small measure of perseverance and determination. The book is wideranging in scope, covering not only the essay, fiction, poetry, art, cinema and broadcasting, as
231
Guatemala’s colonial past and present inequalities. He chooses the vignette as his means of capturing the schizophrenia of self-sacrificing martyrdom, self-censoring inattention, and coldly self-serving survival that political terror instills. Part I focuses on portraits of Guatemalan Mayas-a Q’anjob’al refugee who shares Lovell’s house in Canada; Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta MenchC’s visit to his university; Victor Montejo’s testimony of village slaughter during the counter-insurgency war of the early 1980s; a K’iche’ widow’s search for the remains of her husband and son, ‘disappeared’ by local proxies of the army. In Part II, Love11 takes up the last 15 years of Guatemalan history through the newspaper clippings he has collected during his many visits there-dispassionate renderings of hideously disfigured corpses, empty elections and failed political ‘openings’, endemic ‘popular resistance’ and enduring military oppression. Part III concludes with a discussion of Guatemala’s history of conquest that still poisons relations between Mayas and (non-Indian) Ladinos with the racism that has always rationalised the conqueror’s dehumanisation and exploitation of the conquered. Gracefully written and heartfelt, this book seeks a middle ground between the righteous outrage of pro-revolutionary solidarity and the measured tones of scholarly inquiry. It also partakes of the recent post-modernism fashion of declaring writing in the ‘human sciences’ an inherently political act: Lovell’s preface acknowledges his abiding need to place himself within-and thus testify to-the political inquiries of the country where he does his scholarly research. In negotiating these multiple agendas, the book succeeds in different ways on different levels. Not surprisingly, Lovell’s accomplishments as a writer and historical demographer of colonial Guatemala craft the chapters on Guatemalan history into surely drawn set pieces-informative, nuanced, enlivened by judicious quotes from first-hand accounts. In contrast, his renderings of contemporary Guatemala remain more diffident, if neither doubtful nor disinterested, precisely because he also relies here on textsbooks, newspapers, or even the North Americanisms on second-hand tee-shirts worn by poor, mostly illiterate Guatemalans. His vignettes in Parts I and II work best when he touches on his own encounters travelling across rural Guatemala. One wishes for more of his conversations (or more likely, mutual silences) with Maya as they rode with him in his rented pickup. On another level, however, this distancing through the words of others replicates the indirection that actually pervades everyday life under political terror: omnipresent and absolute, arbitrary and call it, invokes the surreality of both unspoken, capricious, ‘the situation’, as Guatemalans unspeakable knowledge and unfathomable-at times, fatal-uncertainty. Perhaps only through passing vignettes and fragmented memories can we begin to grasp the fractured social reality that Guatemala has become. Love11heightens this, if somewhat ironically, given his characterisation of a too-often ‘timeless’ anthropology, by writing the contemporary history in Part II almost entirely in the ethnographic present. For those who know Guatemala, developments since the events he describes only intensify the paradoxical (because now literally untrue) truths of the bygone moments he perpetuates here. Love11 could have played more purposively on such diffidence, honing examples not only to affirm his personal testimony but also to bring his own muted, distanced renderings of terror more fully to the awareness of those not already familiar with places like Guatemala. Perhaps, in the end, his decision not to do so simply reflects the difference between the historian’s and ethnographer’s craft: ideally, the historian’s examples document, i.e. they attest to occurrences and outcomes; at their best, the ethnographer’s examples evoke, i.e. they capture in specific instances the multiple possibilities of what might have happened instead. Ultimately, this book is as much about the author’s personal relationship with Guatemala as it is about the country and its people. It laments the ambivalence felt by all who have worked or lived in that place at once so beautiful, yet so hurtful to the human spirit. John M. Watanabe Dartmouth College Carlos Ivan and Kirk, Robin (eds) (1995), The Peru Reader: History, Latin American Bureau, and Duke University Press (London and 531 pp. E14.99 pbk.
Starn, Orin, Degregori, Culture,
Durham).
Politics,
Providing an overview of a country’s history and society with a paradigm highlighting difference, diversity and the informal histories of ‘10s de abajo’, is not an easy task, not least when
238
Book Reviews
that country is Peru, where-despite being decentred, fractured and hybridised-these differences have often been overlain by nationalist histories and social myths. Yet this book triumphantly succeeds in drawing together these diverse threads in ways which, while not obscuring their origins, reveal a multi-faceted representation of this complex Andean country. The book is structured in 10 parts, each containing a collection of writings from varied sources and dates; for example, the second part on ‘Conquest and Colonnial Peru’ contains writings by the pro-indigenous cleric Bartolomt de las Casas, the historian Steve Stern, and the 19th century satirist Ricardo Palma. To collect these writings-many of which will be familiar to Peruvian scholars-together provides new insights into the period or topic under discussion, while also raising implicit questions about the agendas, authors and audiences for such texts. Yet the editors are quite clear that their purpose is not to facilely celebrate endless intertextuality; rather they seek to ‘augment traditional scholarship with other modes of criticism and analysis’ (p. 5). Rejecting relativism, they have collected a cross-disciplinary anthology--of necessity selectivebut where a ‘broad sampling of texts enriches even the narrowest of interests’ (p. 5). Initially following historical convention in Parts I and III, the book has sections on ‘Ancient Civilizations’, ‘Conquest and Colonial Rule’ and ‘Republican Peru’ which together make up the first half of the book. Here the choice of material is rich and illustrative, ranging from the Huarochiri manuscript through to Flora Tristan writing about the tupadus women in early Republican Lima. The second half of the book is structured in a less chronological fashion, after Part IV which focuses on the political ferment which characterised the 1920s and 1930s. The focus then rapidly shifts to the 1970s and beyond, with sections on ‘The Break-up of the Old Order’, ‘The Shining Path’ ‘Mu&ray Tiempo’ (referring to the ‘time of fear’ experienced by many, especially poor Andean peasants, during the military-Shining Path confrontations), ‘The Cocaine Economy’, ‘The Struggle for Survival and Neoliberalism’, and finally, in Part X, an overview of cultural trends entitled ‘Culture(s) Redefined’. To summarise the contents of each part is beyond the remit of a review, yet it is important to highlight the range, from songs such as the ‘Choncholi Chewing Gum Rap’ about a Peruvian woman moving to the United States, to a sociological account of a land-invasion on the outskirts of Lima, through to a journalistic account of the cocaine economy in the Huallaga valley. Each piece is prefaced by a shortusually one paragraph-editorial comment, which places the writing in context, explaining more about the author or the topic for a new reader. The introductory paragraphs are perhaps too brief for those whose knowledge of the subject is deep, but they provide an excellent ‘way-in’ for students or other newcomers. If I have one criticism of the presentation of the pieces, it is that there are no dates given for the pieces, a detail that can only give further contextual information to researchers and students. The sections on political violence, the drugs economy and the Shining Path are particularly harrowing and eye-opening, indicating, according to the editors, ‘the trends we believe will shape Peru well into the next century’ (p. 6). Certainly the tasks associated with the construction of new civil society, less riven by the violence and fear associated with militarisation and economic crisis, remain formidable. All in all, this anthology is an invaluable resource for teaching or-for those more familiar with Peru-for reminding us of the ‘other voices’ which make up the reality of the country, and of our partial knowledges of it. Given its good price, and its well-thought anthology of texts, it should be in every library where Latin America is studied. Sarah A. Radcliffe University of Cambridge Bethell, Leslie (ed.) (1996) Cambridge History of Latin America. Vol. 10. Latin America since 1930: Ideas, Culture and Society, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge). xiv + 645 pp. $70.00 hbk. The decision to devote an entire volume of the Cambridge History of Latin America to 20thcentury cultural history was a bold one, given the relatively uncharted nature (at least in English) of much of the territory explored here. As the editor hints in his preface, it was clearly an endeavour that required no small measure of perseverance and determination. The book is wideranging in scope, covering not only the essay, fiction, poetry, art, cinema and broadcasting, as