The Tupac Amaru Rebellion by Charles F. Walker, and: Revolution in the Andes: The age of Tupac Amaru by Sergio Serulnikov

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Tupac Amaru Rebellion by Charles F. Walker, and: Revolution in the Andes: The age of Tupac Amaru by Sergio Serulnikov Mark Thurner The Tupac Amaru Rebellion By Charles F. Walker. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014. Revolution in the Andes: The age of Tupac Amaru By Sergio Serulnikov. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 2013. Since I am writing this review in Argentina and it is the Christmas season, which in our barrio of Buenos Aires at least is celebrated with fireworks, grilled meat, malbec, and books, it seems appropriate to begin with this quote from Roger Chartier's interview of Pierre Bourdieu, recently translated to the English: "It is likely that, if I were a historian, I too would take part in the production of Christmas presents."1 This quote came to mind when an Argentine historian friend posted on Facebook an image of the second Spanish edition of Charles F. Walker's thick book inserted in a red Christmas stocking. My friend was sharing a post that in turn had shared the Christmas reading list of a noted Peruvian journalist who writes for a left-leaning Lima newspaper. (Notably, his list includes several "sociology" titles: evidently, and in this regard at least, Peru is not France.) Here in Buenos Aires, which is rarely accused of not being France, I imagine that, in recent Christmases past, Serulnikov's thin book (published first here in Spanish in 2010 followed by a digital edition in 2012) posed something of a dilemma for the porteño gift-hunter. With the usual exceptions for the thrifty backpacker and the Kindle-maniac, wasn't Revolution a bit demure for those languid afternoons on Uruguay's beaches? In this regard, at least, Walker's Rebellion seems like the better companion. Happily, I have experienced no such dilemma. My red stocking was stuffed with Rebellion and Revolution, compliments of Harvard and Duke University Presses and the kind book review editor of this Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History. And yet, such a shopper's dilemma may not be so far from the heart of the matter at hand, for each of these books has been lauded by just about everyone (including one of our authors) as "the best account" or "the best narrative history" available on the subject.2 The only reason that I hesitate to chime in with the chorus here is that, in our age of superlatives, to declare that a book is "the best" or "definitive" account is to say the obvious. Nowadays, every new book published by "the best" press is "the best available" until of course the next "best" account becomes available, which is normally the next critical work on the subject. More to the point is the question of what kind of histories make good Christmas presents. In entertaining this question I heed Robert Berkhofer's plea that book reviews engage not just the content but the form and grammar of a history. In this case such an approach seems particularly apt, since both of these books claim to be "narrative histories."3 To begin with the titles. Serulnikov's thin Revolution and Walker's thick Rebellion would undoubtedly have stirred more controversy three decades ago, when the titular terms they (or their editors) have chosen for their books were the object of heated and sometimes violent debates among Leftist intellectuals in Peru and elsewhere, then eternally preoccupied with the pressing question of "what is to be done?" Was it just an "antifiscal" peasant rebellion or was it a real social revolution? Around that time a third term gained favor that is not given titular status here, although it appears frequently in both books: insurrection or uprising (insurrección, levantamiento). This term was once linked to other pressing questions. Was Tupac Amaru an Inca messianic movement of return to the precolonial order or an "anticolonial" conflagration whose ashes fertilized the Andean earth for the "revolution of independence" that sprouted decades later? Although both of our authors shy away from either the messianic or "precursor to independence" arguments and teleologies of past generations, it is not a coincidence that both of these books appear in the midst of...