Nineteenth-Century Peru Research Articles

Profits and inequality during an export boom. Evidence from tax records in Lima, Peru

ABSTRACT Some studies have shown that inequality increased in pre-1930 Latin America as the economy and foreign trade grew. Others have shown that there was no clear relationship between economic growth and inequality. The information on nineteenth-century Peru is useful to estimate income inequality during a period of rapid economic growth. This article estimates the distribution of profits in Lima between 1838 and 1859 using information from tax reports. Mobility across social classes was possible for some guild members. However, financiers and large merchants experienced higher growth in profits than artisans and small traders. In addition, a comparison of profits and wages shows that the richest entrepreneurs experienced a rapid increase in profits during a period of declining real wages. Thus, the income gap between the richest and poorest residents of Lima widened during this period.

Hybridity and the Domestication of Wildness: Creating the Paco-vicuña in Early Nineteenth-Century Peru

On August 29, 1846, Peruvian president Ramón Castilla issued a decree honoring Juan Pablo Cabrera, an interim priest from the Macusani district of Puno. The decree recognized the priest's long-standing endeavor to cross the wild vicuña with the domesticated alpaca. The exquisite quality of the fiber and the tractable nature of this new hybrid animal gave rise to the hope that it might become a valuable resource, and therefore Peru was indebted to the priest and his service on behalf of the young republic. This essay examines Cabrera's venture, the creation of the paco-vicuña, and its emergence onto the national and international scene in the 1840s. Cabrera's paco-vicuña endeavor highlights the importance of local ventures, knowledge, and expertise, and shows how these were deeply entangled in contemporary intellectual and political projects, especially those concerning mestizaje and nation formation, as well as international scientific and economic interests of the time.

Hidden Spaces of Empire: Italian Colonists in Nineteenth-Century Peru

Abstract Among the clichés in modern European history, one of the most common is of Italy as ‘the least of the Great Powers’, unable to punch above its weight in the international arena and classed as a ‘latecomer’ to imperial conquest. In this article, I suggest instead that historians have been looking in the wrong place, and in the wrong period, for evidence of Italian ambition. By concentrating on territorial acquisitions in Africa, they are assessing only a small, relatively unproductive and arguably atypical slice of Italy’s global presence. I argue that even before national unification, and long before acquiring a formal Empire, Italy built a global influence structured by the activities of overseas migrants. Yet, despite the recent ‘turn’ to global history and the stress on diversity in colonial experience, the chronology and geography of the European nation-state still shape our understanding of nineteenth-century Empire. Looking at the hugely successful Italian colony in Peru, at both its commercial and scientific interests and at a violent attempt to establish a settler colony in Chanchamayo, in the Peruvian Amazon, I argue that this Italian world was driven not a nation state but relied instead on a common culture, a culture that was created by a capacity for local assimilation, by Catholic notions of civilisation and by ideas of white racial superiority. Modern imperialism was shaped as much by ‘lesser’ powers, often before – or without – the nation-state, and in continuity with the practices of the early-modern period. Moreover, mundane migrants could be the most successful empire-builders. I conclude with a call to take note of the full and diverse range of nineteenth-century colonial activities, and not to assume the primacy of formal Empires in the period of ‘High Imperialism.’

The Indigenous Inheritance: Critical Antecedents and State Building in Latin America and Southeast Asia

AbstractIn comparative-historical analysis, countries are always different places before critical junctures set them on divergent pathways. By comparing the legacies of politicized ethnic diversity for the construction of state infrastructural power in Latin America and Southeast Asia, we elaborate the methodological and substantive importance of these “critical antecedents.” The critical antecedent in each region was the inheritance at independence of a sharp indigenous cleavage. This indigenous inheritance shaped threat perceptions and state-society coalitions in both regions in similarly powerful path-dependent ways—yet in intriguingly divergent directions. A salient indigenous cleavage hindered but did not preclude state building in nineteenth-century Peru, while fostering but not predestining state building in post–World War II Malaysia. Divergent levels of postcolonial state infrastructural power thus exhibit deep if indirect foundations in the identity cleavages inherited from preindependence eras. This cross-region comparative exploration highlights the analytical leverage gained from systematically incorporating preexisting cross-case differences into critical juncture accounts.

Power of the law or power of the sword: the conflictive relationship between the executive and the legislative in nineteenth-century Peru

ABSTRACTThe Peruvian parliament was a central institution in the early republic, but so far very little has been written on its history. This is due to the fact that military leaders took control of power for most of the nineteenth century. This article reflects on three main questions: what was the role of the legislative in nineteenth-century Peru? What was its relationship with the executive power? And what part did conflict play in these relationships? Most initial congresses were tasked with writing up constitutions, because institutions had to be created, and there was a strong belief that having a written charter mattered. The strongmen who took power felt the need to obtain legitimacy from both constitutions, and elections, but often did not see eye to eye with congress. This led congress to be closed, particularly when legislators refused to bow down to presidential power.

Benoîte Cadeau-Fessel and the birth of midwifery in nineteenth-century Peru

The first maternity hospital in Latin America was founded in Lima in 1826 largely thanks to the efforts of a French midwife, Benoite Cadeau-Fessel, who arrived in Peru with her husband after having trained at the maternity clinic of Port-Royal. This dynamic and enterprising woman trained Peruvian women students in the theory and practice of obstetrics and organized midwifery as a profession. The women she trained quickly positioned themselves as specialists in obstetrics, more competent than traditional birth attendants and doctors. The midwives trained at the Maternity of Lima eventually gained social recognition, thanks to Fessel’s professional and scientific instruction, which allowed them to position themselves as experts on childbirth.

On a Republic in Ruins: Flora Tristan's Peregrinations of a Pariah and the Role of the Rabonas in Nineteenth-Century Peru

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments Thanks to Sara Troyani, translator of the first version of this article. Additional informationNotes on contributorsVanesa MiseresVanesa Miseres is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Notre Dame. Her publications include “Lengua y raza como pilares de la identidad en Sarmiento” (Céfiro, 2005) and “De artesana de la palabra a obrera del pensamiento: Clorinda Matto de Turner y sus reflexiones en torno a la prensa en La Bolsa de Arequipa (1884)” (Boletín del Instituto Riva Agüero, 2011). She is currently working on a book, “Women Travelers and the Creation of National Discourses in Latin America (1830–1910).”

Mercury (not always rising) and the social economy of nineteenth-century Peru

This study focuses on the Peruvian mining industry of mercury or azogue in the nineteenth century.Mercury was a crucial component for Andean and Mexican silver mining during colonialtimes and still in the first century of Republican Peru. However, it was not the booming industrythat occurred at the end of the sixteenth century, in the second half of the seventeenth, and at thesecond half of the eighteenth century with production peaks at 13 000, 8000 and 7000 quintalsper year. During the nineteenth century it was rather a relative modest industry («not always rising») but also had moments of peak and decline. The article discusses production figures from the1950 by engineers Fernandez Concha, Yates, and Kent, with new statistics coming from archivalsources, which shows important regional levels of production and articulation with silver miningcenters such as Cerro de Pasco. The article also shows that mercury production was not limitedto the old colonial Huancavelica mine of Santa Bárbara but to other areas in the Huancavelicaregion, such as Angaraes and Lircay, or beyond Hunacavelica, such as Chonta in Cerro de Pascoor even Chachapoyas. It also focuses on the conflictive dynamics that mining production meantfor criollo business people, the government, merchants, and indigenous workers. There wereseveral business efforts to revitalize the mine of Santa Bárbara as well as to invest in Huancavelicamercury mining in combination with government initiatives and actions, but it is also clear theaction of mercury merchants, rescatires, who many times rather dealt with workers and humachis,independent laborers or small entrepreneurs, many times Andean Quechua peasants, who ratherbenefitted during the down cycles in mercury production. Finally, after analyzing this particularindustry, the author reflects on the meaning of economic development and historical studies tocriticize U.S. economic historians such as Stephen Haber (from Stanford University) and JohnCoatsworth (from Columbia University) and their view that Latin American countries have to«catch-up» with the capitalist development in the United States and Western Europe, as well aspost-modern and cultural studies which deny the materiality of human life.

Guano, Credible Commitments, and Sovereign Debt Repayment in Nineteenth-Century Peru

Peru's experience with sovereign debt during the guano boom is one of the most remarkable in the nineteenth century. Despite the country's ongoing political instability and poor capital market reputation, the price of Peruvian bonds soared shortly after settlement in 1849, and the country enjoyed relatively low credit risk until the 1870s. This article discusses the incentives Peru and its creditors faced, and explains how Peru's extraordinary performance in financial markets was founded on its credible commitment to service its debt with the guano proceeds.

La mirada esquiva: Reflexiones históricas sobre la interacción del estado y la cuidadanía en los Andes (Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú), siglo XIX

La mirada esquiva: Reflexiones históricas sobre la interacción del estado y la cuidadanía en los Andes (Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú), siglo XIX

El futuro del pasado: Las coordenadas de la configuración de los Andes

El futuro del pasado: Las coordenadas de la configuración de los Andes

Más allá de la dominación y la resistencia. Estudios de historia peruana, siglos XVI-XX. Edited by Paulo Drinot and Leo Garofalo. Lima: Instituo de Estudios Peruanos, 2005. pp. 379. Tables. Map. Notes. Bibliography.

Reviewed by: Más allá de la dominación y la resistencia. Estudios de historia peruana, siglos XVI-XX Ulrich Muecke Más allá de la dominación y la resistencia. Estudios de historia peruana, siglos XVI-XX. Edited by Paulo Drinot and Leo Garofalo. Lima: Instituo de Estudios Peruanos, 2005. Pp. 379. Tables. Map. Notes. Bibliography. This book is a collection of twelve essays about Peruvian history, ranging from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. With only one exception, the authors study or studied in Great Britain or the United States and, with most of the chapters based on recently completed doctoral research, the book provides insight into the work of young scholars of Peruvian history in Anglo-Saxon universities. [End Page 477] In their Introduction, Drinot and Garofalo explain what the twelve contributions have in common, beginning with a description of the three different trends in Peruvian historiography over the last fifty years. After discussing a Hispanic and conservative historiography dominant until the 1960s, they move onto the rise of a critical historiography that opposed the preceding one and then to the 1980s, when the new historiography became discredited to a certain extent because it was based more upon theoretical assumptions than empirical research and therefore paid little attention to the lower classes, especially the Indians. Drinot and Garofalo conclude that there is no dominant paradigm today and that different methods and views help to create a far more diverse—and therefore more accurate—picture of Peruvian history. According to the editors, all twelve essays fit into this current trend which means, above all, that they no longer defend the concept of Peruvian history as amounting to one long story of (foreign or upper class) dominance and (indigenous or lower class) resistance. Five of the twelve contributions are dedicated to colonial history. Heidi V. Scott analysizes the discourses of Peru's conquerors, arguing that these were influenced far more greatly by South American nature and by the Indians than is generally assumed. In the second chapter, Rachel Sarah O'Toole shows that caste classification was by no means static, but subject to constant change. Moreover, it was not so much the color of a person's skin but rather the kind of Spanish they spoke or the way they dressed that defined their caste. In her essay on colonial religion in southern Peru, María Marsilli stresses the importance of pre-Columbian local cults, persecuted by the Catholic Church there to a far lesser extent than in the Cuzco region. Leo J. Garofalo describes life in the taverns of seventeenth-century Lima and Cuzco, places of great importance for what could be called a pre-modern public sphere in which people from almost all social strata participated. A detailed analysis of the incomplete census of 1724-1740 is the basis of the last essay focusing on colonial history. This census was one of the most important undertakings initiated by Viceroy Castelfuerte, the first 'Bourbon reformer' in Peru. Three of the four essays on nineteenth-century Peru concern issues that have been at the center of historiographical debate for the last 15 years. Natalia Sobrevilla takes up the ongoing discussion on the role of the guano trade in changing the power balance between Peru's regions. In her opinion, the guano trade did not have the importance many historians have hitherto ascribed to it. Martín Monsalve analyses mid-nineteenth-century civil society in general and elections in particular, arguing that the liberal elite changed its political direction after losing elections in the 1850s. It began to place a greater emphasis on civil society, in this way hoping to control the participation of the lower classes to a far greater extent than it had been able to during the elections. Similarly, Antonio Espinoza sees the elites' project to improve education as a means of controlling the lower classes. Nevertheless, education did not have the significance imagined by the elites because only a small proportion of children went to school. In the last article on the nineteenth century, Tanja Christiansen describes the life of domestic employees in Cajamarca and shows that [End Page 478] the status of these young women...

La experiencia burguesa en el Perú (1840-1940)

This book is a collection of 17 studies about Peruvian history in the second half of the nineteenth century. Focusing on Lima and especially on the capital’s social and educated elite, most deal with intellectual, political, and cultural history. Aside from the epoch and the city under investigation, the articles are very heterogeneous in character. This makes the book a kind of reader in current trends in historiography pertaining to nineteenth-century Lima.Five articles are dedicated to an intellectual history of Lima’s upper classes: a chapter on the lawyer Francisco García Calderón, a discussion of liberalism in the 1850s, an essay on ideas of sovereignty, an analysis of nineteenth-century Peruvian historiography, and an exploration of the memory of the battle of May 2. The main focus of the book is political history, with chapters discussing the creation of departments and provinces, primary-education policy in Lima, and conflicts between church and state. In my view, the most interesting articles describe the exclusionary policies of Lima’s middle and upper classes. Using census data from 1876, Jesús Cosamalón shows that, unlike the poor in Santiago de Chile or Mexico City, Lima’s lower class was highly stratified along racial lines. As a result, Lima’s social structure was more closely linked to racial background than in other Latin American capitals. Race therefore played a crucial role in the policies of inclusion and exclusion among the political parties of the middle and upper classes: class was not only an economic issue. Carlos Aguirre employs similar arguments. By referring to contemporary discourse on criminality, he shows that in the second half of the nineteenth century, the educated classes created an image of lower-class criminality that was then linked to racially mixed or “dark” people. This was the image that drove authoritarian exclusionary measures planned at establishing greater control over the lower classes. Finally, Gabriella Chiaramonti demonstrates that in the 1870s, congressmen proposed and discussed laws restricting the right to vote to a relatively small, educated elite, which eventually came into effect in the 1890s.While these three contributions analyze political exclusion, other articles use culture as a starting point to examine the exclusionary practices of Lima’s middle and upper classes. Paul Rizo Patrón describes the ways in which the people enriched by guano fortunes attempted to integrate themselves into the European nobility. Similarly, Cristina Mazzeo holds that the main goal of a guano trader named Francisco Quirós was to stop being a merchant and become an hacendado instead. Francesca Denegri describes how the changing style of women’s clothes during this period was used to create a distinction between rich educated “whites” and the rest of Lima’s inhabitants. In the only article that focuses on early-twentieth-century history, Carlos Gálvez analyzes the ways in which less-wealthy people tried to conform to aristocratic, or at least upper-class, norms of death and burial.Many of the articles recap their authors’ previous research, while some present interesting new case studies. Most of the articles form part of current historiography trends in their analysis of nineteenth-century Latin American nation-states from a political and intellectual perspective, asking the question of why the realities of Peru’s political system differed so much from the ideals of its republican founders. The historiography of the last two decades has answered that political culture is related to, but not dependent on, economic and social structures; consequently, we must examine political culture to understand the nation-state. This explains why the concept “citizenship” gained so much importance and the concept of the “liberal revolution” replaced that of the “bourgeois revolution.”While most of the articles form part of this revisionist view of the nineteenth century, the title and the introduction of the book defend the concept of bourgeoisie. Carmen Mc Evoy makes the point that bourgeoisie is not only an economic concept but also a cultural one. From a cultural point of view, she argues, a bourgeoisie certainly existed in nineteenth-century Peru, characterized by a high level of education, moral values, and republican political commitment. But even if one were to accept that the concept of bourgeoisie has no economic implication at all, the articles collected in this book testify in great detail to the fact that the education, moral values, and political commitments of Peru’s middle and upper classes were not as similar to European bourgeois culture as Mc Evoy appears to think. The comparison she makes to the German Bildungsbürgertum, for example, does not work. Although I do not agree entirely with Mc Evoy’s interpretation, I nevertheless believe that the book is a good starting point for the study of the political, intellectual, and cultural history of Lima’s elite in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Racial Conflict and Identity Crisis in Wartime Peru: Revisiting the Cañete Massacre of 1881

This article subjects the historiography and evidence of the massacre of Chinese immigrants in the Cañete valley by Afro-Peruvian peasants, led by women during the War of the Pacific, to critical analysis in light of recent discussions of the nexus of race, culture and nation. It validates the motives of the peasants who carried out the massacre by examining the event as an aspect of racial and cultural identity formation. The study highlights the self-serving character of contemporary evaluations, and it gives attention to the cultural tensions and ambiguous meanings present in the massacre which illustrate the character of national identity projects in late nineteenth-century Peru.

Crafting the republic: Lima's artisans and nation building in Peru, 1821-1879

This clearly written, cogently argued assessment of social and political mobilisation in nineteenth-century Peru focuses on 5,000 Lima artisans, 70 percent of whom were black, Indian, or mestizo. Garcia-Bryce traces the evolution of these guild artisans into class-conscious workers. His discussion gives special attention to how artisans' declining economic success meant not only a loss of income but undercut gains in social status. It is in this interplay of economics and race that Garcia-Bryce's analysis of the origins of class identity is most revealing. The fate of Lima's artisans, the most numerous of whom were shoemakers, tailors, and carpenters, is discussed against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Liberalism, which sought to align everyone to the 'greater good' of the state while side-stepping demands from special interest groups such as craft workers. Indeed, following the abolition of guilds in 1862, the artisans fully subscribed to the modernisation promised by the liberal elites. But when in the 1870s it became clear the state could not deliver on its promises, working-class identity began to emerge, especially fostered by a newly emergent group of artisans, the printers.

Aguinaldo para las señoras del Perú y otros ensayos, 1854–1869

Francisco Laso (1823–69) is familiar to Latin American art historians as the painter of El Indo Alfarero/The Indian Potter, ca. 1855, and a few other remarkable images of the indigenous people of Peru. Often described as the isolated forerunner of twentieth-century indigenismo, Laso was an enlightened artist whose work was closely associated with the politics of his day. He invested his figures with a powerful dignity in an effort to reclaim the nation’s heritage and revive its ancient cultural and artistic traditions. Peru’s subsequent indigenista movement concentrated on the living traditions and environment of the Andes, not on the past. Laso’s imagery reveals an empathy and respect for the native people, past and present.After the wars of independence, a few Peruvian artists (like others throughout Latin America) attempted to create a national identity free of European restraints. Following the lead of the nation’s intellectuals and the vagaries of new political administrations, artists used imagery to visualize this new reality and assist in the dissemination of the independence message among the population. However, it was a difficult break from the Academic traditions brought by Europeans and learned in European schools and studios. Francisco Laso began his studies in Lima, then traveled to Europe in 1842 to paint in the studio of Charles Gleyre in Paris. Upon his return to Peru in 1847, he began a search for native subject matter (Europeans were already interested in “exotic” subjects). He actually painted his notable El Indio Alfarero in Paris. After a third trip to Paris in 1863–66, he returned to Lima and became an active participant in Peruvian politics, representing Lima in the Constitutional Assembly and devoting himself to writing. Increased involvement with the intellectuals of the day affected his artistic production, although he is still respected as a painter and the premier artist of the republican period and less recognized for his writing.Editor Natalia Majluf is an art historian whose doctoral thesis was titled “The Creation of the Image of the Indian in Nineteenth Century Peru: The Paintings of Francisco Laso.” Undoubtedly, this research required an understanding of his political writings and the intellectual environment of Peru at that time; her publication of these essays may be seen as a tribute to his work and an effort to reclaim the significance of his activities for the nation’s history. Her comprehensive introduction is an excellent summary of his life’s work and puts it into a context of time and place. The introduction describes Laso as writer and political activist, explaining his role in a generation born with independence and given the responsibility to break with the colonial past and establish a new national iconography and symbolic language, both visual and written. As an accomplished and dedicated artist and writer, Laso could do both. The question Majluf wishes to address is, why have his contributions been overlooked?The most immediate response must be that, despite their relevance to an understanding of Peruvian nation building in midcentury, Laso published relatively few essays. Their publication in newspapers, reviews, and journals—often difficult to access—compounds the problem. This publication will change that situation for Peruvianist historians, offering new material relevant to the analysis of the country’s ideological, sociocultural, and political environment. Laso and his generation wanted to transform the entire populace of Peru (including Indians) into informed citizens. Their participation as writers and members of the new governing administration contributed to this effort. However, who was Laso’s audience? Did his words and actions penetrate the entrenched class system and offer new solutions?The essays are written with the energy of nineteenth-century idealism, which has familiar correlations to bohemian counterparts in revolutionary France. There are elements that may seem condescending in its preaching against European artistic domination, and Laso is also less indebted to the Indian artistic heritage (“almost primitive”) than we may hope for today. But it was the middle of the nineteenth century, and the true value of past Andean traditions—pre-Inca, Inca, and colonial—was not yet recognized. The essays must be read in context. They can also be appreciated as the product of an artist who references the language of painting for visual metaphors that are especially unique. I must disagree with Majluf’s comment that a direct correspondence does not exist between Laso’s paintings and writings (p. 17). Although his creative production as a painter diminished after 1860, he continued to write with the passion of an artist, as well as writing about art. These essays establish Laso as a valuable member of the intelligentsia of his day, both as an artist and a writer.

Political culture in nineteenth-century Peru: the rise of the Partido Civil

Political culture in nineteenth-century Peru: the rise of the Partido Civil

Studies in the Formation of the Nation-State in Latin America

This volume originated at a conference at the Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of London in June 1999. It is a variegated bouquet of essays; the authors have chosen diverse themes relating to the development of the nation-state and have approached their tasks in dissimilar ways. Most of the essays focus on the nineteenth century, although some extend into the twentieth. The first essay, by Florencia Mallon, provides a useful discussion of some issues, abundantly citing relevant works on the formation of the nation-state in Mexico, Peru, and Chile, with particular emphasis on the roles of indigenous subalterns. Paul Gootenberg offers a synthetic summary of much of his work on nineteenth-century Peru, both that on the early period of caudillistic regional conflict (1821– 45) and his later study of elite developmentalist dreams and projects after 1845. These essays have the advantage of offering students relatively brief introductions to their perspectives. Seemin Qayum’s essay on Bolivia, taken from her University of London dissertation, also addresses elite projects. But, bearing in mind their impact on the indigenous population, it characterizes them more negatively. Qayum describes Bolivian elites as engaging in a project of internal colonialism, with Bolivia’s National Geographic Society (1904) as a salient expression of that project. The elite project included railway construction but was directed more generally at the appropriation of indigenous land. Qayum concludes that Bolivian elites failed to consolidate a nation-state, in part because of indigenous resistance and in part because of “structural economic factors relating to Bolivia’s position in the world market” (p. 298). Colin Lewis contributes an informative discussion of railway construction and monetary reform as integrative factors in post-1852 Argentina. Fernando López-Alves, focusing on the 1890–1930 period, treats the institution of Uruguay’s welfare system as a means of consolidating the state; he sees the welfare system as having been patterned, to some degree, on earlier military pensions.Miguel Centeno asks a central question: if war led to the construction of nation-states in Europe, why did nineteenth-century wars in Latin America not stimulate the development of strong states? He correctly notes that lack of economic integration (particularly before 1900) represents a fundamental obstacle to state formation. He also appropriately points out that many civil wars in Latin America were not about territory but rather about competing claims to central power. However, as the literature on war as stimulus to state-building in Europe stresses its role as an impetus to revenue collection, it is surprising that Centeno does not discuss the revenue consequences of the partisan civil wars of nineteenth-century Latin America. (Civil wars undermined the state’s fiscal resources, while forced loans undermined respect for the state.) Centeno’s speculation on the reasons why war failed to strengthen Latin American states in the nineteenth century is accompanied by Malcolm Deas’s informative discussion of military recruitment as a “blood tax.” Deas refrains from drawing explicit conclusions about the significance of this phenomenon for the construction, strengthening, or weakening of the state.Among the more interesting essays is Guy Thomson’s revealing comparison of differing modes in primary education, desamortización, liberal constitutionalism, church-state relations, and the manipulation of patriotic symbols in the construction of the nation-state in nineteenth-century Mexico and Spain. And Steven Topik offers a vigorous essay arguing (against interpretations that emphasize the relative effectiveness of the central state in nineteenth-century Brazil) that the empire was in reality a “hollow state.” Externally—to European states, financiers, and merchants—the Brazilian empire appeared a functioning state. But, Topik contends, internally it had little operative reach into the provinces. David McCreery’s first-rate essay on “State and Society in Nineteenth-Century Goiás” supports Topik’s contention. However, studies of São Paulo or Minas would provide a more conclusive test of Topik’s vision than the distant, relatively unintegated frontier region of Goiás. Alan Knight’s “The Weight of the State in Modern Mexico,” while referring particularly to Mexico, has much more general relevance. Knight critically analyzes concepts about state formation and problems in measuring both the strength of the state and the effectiveness and political implications of institutions constituting civil society. Knight’s essay and, in differing ways, Topik’s, seem to me the most important and generally significant in this book.As varying in theme and approach as the essays in this volume are, they offer broadly useful approaches to the state and nation in nineteenth-century Latin America. Even those essays that I found in some respects wanting are likely to prompt interesting class discussions. I will be using this book in my next seminar on the nineteenth century.

Between Coca and Cocaine: A Century or More of U.S.-Peruvian Drug Paradoxes, 1860–1980

Between Coca and Cocaine: A Century or More of U.S.-Peruvian Drug Paradoxes, 1860–1980

José R. Deustua, The Bewitchment of Silver: The Social Economy of Mining in Nineteenth-Century Peru (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000), pp. xvi+290, $28.00 pb.

José R. Deustua, <i>The Bewitchment of Silver: The Social Economy of Mining in Nineteenth-Century Peru</i> (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2000), pp. xvi+290, $28.00 pb.