Peruvian Nationalism

Book excerpt: Peru is the most interesting model of justice and development in Latin America today. To ana­lyze the sociopolitical progress of this nation, David Chaplin has gathered together and edited this interdisciplinary collection of essays. Peru's development is unique for several rea­sons. First, it has shown that a military force that was trained largely by the United States can em­ploy its professional expertise not to remain a well-behaved ally but to pull off a genuinely radi­cal nationalist revolution even at the expense of various interests of its "benefactor." Second, Peru has proven that successful economic de­velopment need be neither capitalist nor Social-ist. Peruvian Nationalism contains major papers by leading Peruvianists on the 1960s and on the current revolutionary military regime. The tem­poral focus is on the current (post-1968) revolu­tionary military government, with background material covering the early 1960s. Contributors are all social scientists -- including American, Italian and Peruvian writers -- who have carried outfield research in Peru. The primary focus of this volume is the radical change being carried out by the current military structure. Relevant background topics include: Peru's sociopolitical structure during the 1960s, especially under the Belaunde regime, with par­ticular attention to peasant movements and agrarian reform; a reassessment of the pre-1968 golpe (coup de'etat) behavior of former military governments; an analysis of the uniquely radical ideology and concrete reforms of the current mil­itary government. This social science reader on Peru is a schol­arly as well as sympathetic treatment of Peru's national and local politics, social structure, agrarian and tax reform and peasant move­ments. The editor has provided an extensive in­troduction and index and has also included a thorough bibliography of publications on Peru since 1960.