This book is a reflection of the long and fruitful relationship Charles Walker has had with Peruvian History. Walker has been deeply engaged with Peru for a very long period, and Diálogos con el Perú shows this dedication. It collects his essays from the last 25 years and provides an excellent overview of the topics he is best known for, as well as some other avenues that he looked into but did not fully pursue. It is therefore an excellent companion to his classic study of Cuzco in the transit from colony to republic, Smoldering Ashes, and to his most recent book on the Bourbon reforms in Lima in the aftermath of the 1746 earthquake, Shaky Colonialism. The book is divided into three sections: the first features his essays on Lima, the second contains his essays on independence and caudillismo, and finally there is a series of more general reflections on historiography and teaching.
The essays all touch in one way or another on issues of power and aim to find the perspective of subaltern actors. Be it the popular classes in Lima that made Bourbon administrators' aim of reforming the city more difficult, the women who predicted further catastrophes with visions of balls of fire in the aftermath of the earthquake, or the peasants from Cuzco who through their use of legal challenges frustrated the authorities' plans for change, Walker provides the reader with examples of how these diverse groups used what agency they had to challenge the powerful. By doing so he questions more traditional views of Indians as passive agents. Walker's essays also contribute to the study of the long history of hierarchical difference in Peru, built on ideas of race; they do this by concentrating on elites and the visions they had of the subaltern, but never losing sight of the interactions the elites had with these groups with whom they lived in close proximity.
The first essay presents the challenges faced by Bourbon administrators in their attempts to reform the city, and discusses how even though the upper classes agreed with the aim of controlling and civilising those beneath them, they were not prepared to give up their own privileges. This also comes through in the piece on the upper classes and the earthquake, which recounts the way in which elites fought for their right to maintain two storeys on their houses, something they considered central to their position in society. Two essays in the second part show how the elite discourse on Indians was not homogeneous, noting that there were some ‘discordant’ voices that instead of ascribing the Indians' backwardness to their nature saw the explanation in social and economic factors. In spite of this, as shown in one essay, Indians were crucially absent from the discussions of the Sociedad Patriotica set up by San Martín in 1822 to debate what kind of government independent Peru should have. This, Walker claims, had important long-term repercussions on the place Indians were assigned in the institutions of the newly created republic. Another issue that some of his essays brings to the fore, particularly the one on crime and Indians in the period of the ‘great fear’ after Tupac Amaru, is that of the differences between Indians. Walker shows how Indians in fact fought against each other quite frequently, as they did during the Tupac Amaru rebellions.
Although the book is centred on Peru, it shows that Walker has fruitfully engaged with comparisons that have enriched his conclusions. This is the case with the pairing of Lima and Lisbon in order to understand the aftermath of two great earthquakes in a similar period but in very distant and different cities. Another example is the comparison of Mexico and Peru at the end of the colonial period and in the process of independence, which allows Walker to trace differences and similarities. It is an approach that helps situate Peru in a wider context and shows Walker's range of interest. This breadth and depth is also seen in some of the essays that do not fit so neatly in the two large research projects that have so far guided his career. We find detailed and incisive essays on Mariátegui and the Lima of his time, the place of the jungle in official discourse, the situation of Peruvian immigrants in Chicago and the experiences of using truth commissions to teach students. The last essay is, perhaps fittingly, a study of historiography that aims to assess the impact of new currents in the production of history in Peru. It ends pondering on the reasons why, even if there has been great innovation in production in the last couple of decades, this has not been translated into real change in school curricula, or in the perceptions of the general public.
The greatest strength of the book is that it presents the reader with the whole corpus of Walker's work and makes it accessible. Many of the articles were previously out of print or available only in difficult-to-access journals and publications, while others have been translated into Spanish for the first time – and herein lies the second strength of the book, which is that it makes Walker's work available to a wider readership in Peru. This aim of including everything is one of the weaknesses of the collection, however, as there is perhaps too great a range in the essays themselves. Some are aimed at a wider audience and tend to be quite general, while others, especially those from longer ago, show ideas that have been challenged by more recent work or even surpassed by Walker himself. But as these essays are the minority, it can be argued that they serve to provide a fuller picture of the historian and the development of his craft. Diálogos con el Perú is therefore a recommended read for anyone interested in the colonial and republican history of Peru, and for those interested in historiography as the development of ideas.
