The scene is set in Machu Picchu Pueblo, a little village located in the Sacred Valley of Peru that forms the entrance to the world-famous UNESCO World Heritage site of the same name. All tourists to Machu Picchu have to travel through this village, and they are doing so in ever increasing numbers (currently between 4,000 and 5,000 a day). Subsequently, almost the entire economy of the village is tourism driven and the economic stakes are high. Influenced by neoliberal policies, foreign capital has been attracted, which is the reason for struggles and protests on the part of local entrepreneurs. They feel that their economic opportunities are being curtailed by more powerful economic and political actors, such as the foreign-owned train company and the national government. Pellegrino Luciano combines a political economy approach with Ervin Goffman's social interaction theory to show how the local actors of Machu Picchu Pueblo negotiate amongst each other and with more powerful actors, and how they struggle against neoliberalism and globalisation. Luciano did his anthropological fieldwork for this study in 2002–3. His book is an ethnographic account written in a vivid style that – by introducing the principal actors and presenting the local discussions in direct speech – makes the reader part of the scene.

In the first chapter, Luciano explains how spaces and locations overlap. Machu Picchu is the name for the protected area (the ‘Sanctuary’, through which the Inca Trail runs and where peasants live in small communities), as well as for a political district, a town and the archaeological heritage site. The chapter gives an overview of the history of the Sanctuary and the growth of the district and town. The latter is also popularly known as Aguas Calientes. The role of international agencies such as UNESCO is discussed, as are those of the National Geographic Society and Yale historian Hiram Bingham, who ‘discovered’ the ruins (locals knew about their existence and showed him the way to them) and subsequently reported on them in overly romantic terms to an international public (p. 21). In the second chapter, the author shines a light on how large economic interests have resulted in identity politics. As Luciano argues, the people of Machu Picchu live in an area that is promoted and defined by tourism. For example, State institutions consider the peasants who live in the Sanctuary not to be ‘Indian enough’ to fit the idyllic image that the authorities wish to promote to tourists. In the opinion of the bureaucrats, the peasants should adopt a more essentialised Andean identity in order to enthuse the tourists (p. 41).

Chapter 3 focuses on the social, political and economic changes resulting from tourism and on the diverging class positions of the local entrepreneurs, from souvenir vendors to owners of middle-sized hotels and restaurants. Chapters 4 and 5 give in-depth accounts of meetings between local leaders, conservation and State authorities, with an analysis of how an institutional rationale is used to dispossess people of their belongings. In Chapter 6, the focus is on local leaders and their plans for blockading the Machu Picchu tourist train. Such blockades deal a symbolic blow to the foreign-owned train company that has the transportation monopoly on the Cusco–Machu Picchu line, and it would send a strong message to the authorities, locally deeply distrusted. Though such a protest action can be organised only through unity, dissension and disagreements are equally noteworthy among local leaders, townspeople and entrepreneurs, because, for some, the struggle is about fair competition and distribution of wealth, whereas for others it is more a radical anti-neoliberal struggle (p. 139).

In Machu Picchu, everybody dreams of attaining wealth and intends to get their share of tourism development. Most are not against the market nor capitalism. They are against the influence of the national State and of foreign-owned companies with whom they are not in a position to compete. For all actors, Machu Picchu represents a cash machine, the hen that lays the golden eggs; ‘Living under the Hen’ is the title of Luciano's introductory chapter, and all want their share.

The author states that his study was time-set in ‘a pivotal moment in the transition towards Peru's neoliberal economy’ (p. 2). Tourism in the Sacred Valley is developing at an ever-increasing speed. Tourism investments and revenues continue to grow rapidly, and neoliberal policies and the attraction of foreign capital are still the main motor. The current challenge for the local population of the Valley is the projected construction of an international airport close to the village of Chinchero (located at some 50 km from Machu Picchu) that will bring even larger numbers of tourists to the region. Judging from recent media reports, the airport project is surrounded by controversy and dissension comparable to those Luciano studied in Machu Picchu Pueblo during his fieldwork nearly two decades ago. History seems to repeat itself here, and Luciano's study has not lost any of its timeliness.