The book, edited by Paulo Drinot, opens with a preface by historian Nelson Manrique in which he recalls the deeply contradictory nature of President Augusto Leguía's regime, known as the ‘Patria Nueva’ (1919–30). Indeed, while some praise the transformative nature of its socio-economic modernisation project, many others are very critical about a regime they consider to be dictatorial, corrupt and subordinated to US interests. Although it represents the longest government in Peru's contemporary republican political history, the Patria Nueva remains largely unknown.

On that basis, the purpose of this book is to shed a new light on this key historical period, which saw both the strengthening of state interventionism and the emergence of new socio-political dynamics. The book is based on several empirical studies in the fields of economic history and, more specifically, political and cultural history. The different methodological and theoretical approaches, as well as the different geographical scales used in the book, reveal not only President Leguía's efforts to modernise the country but also the inherent contradictions of his liberal ‘progressive’, positivist national programme across various aspects of Peruvian society and state transformations.

The book begins with a long introduction, in which Paulo Drinot reviews the divergent interpretations of the regime that have been consolidated since its fall in August 1930. Both hagiographic works and the creation of a ‘black legend’ are key to understanding the way in which disputed memories have been shaped and the impact of this on historical writing. Based on a complete and updated bibliography, this literature review is particularly useful for appreciating the main historical debates surrounding the Leguiísta regime.

Following the introduction, seven relatively independent chapters offer an image of the 1920s not only as a decade of significant political, economic and sociocultural transformations, but also as a time of rising tensions and conflicts due to the crisis of the traditional oligarchic order. In the first essay, Pablo F. Luna examines President Leguía's attempts to strengthen the role of the state within the economic and financial sectors, highlighting continuities with methods and ideas developed by the former Civilista governments. Next, by exploring Peru's participation in the development of aeronautics, Willie Hiatt questions the gap between expectation and reality with respect to an ideal of European modernity. Another four chapters deal with an essential aspect of the Patria Nueva: its ‘official’ indigenist policy. In the field of history of law and ideas, Lior Ben David studies the changes affecting the legal status of indigenous populations brought about by the 1924 Penal Code. Fiona Wilson examines the emergence of an ‘indigenism from below’ exemplified by the activities of the Comité Pro-Derecho Indígena ‘Tahuantinsuyo’ (‘Tahuantinsuyo’ Pro-Indigenous Rights Committee) in the city of Tarma. Following this regional perspective, Jaymie Patricia Heilman investigates the various forms of indigenous participation in the Tahuantinsuyo movement, from peaceful activism to the outbreak of violent rebellions in Ayacucho. Finally, David Rengifo Carpio looks at indigenous politics from the perspective of Leguía's cultural policy. Reflecting on the revival of the opera Ollanta in Lima in 1920, the author suggests that theatrical experience was not just a space of entertainment but also served as an ideological ‘vehicle’ for bringing about social change and incorporating all social milieux in a renewed ‘imagined community’. In the following and final chapter, Melisa Moore pursues this reflection about the construction of national identity by considering the rise of new political and poetic ideas. She shows in particular how intellectual and political circles became gradually fragmented because of emerging counter-hegemonic intellectuals and political thinkers such as the socialist José Carlos Mariátegui.

The book provides fruitful insights for revisiting key aspects of Peruvian historiography in the early twentieth century. First, there are some differences between the authors’ interpretations of the significance of the Patria Nueva as representing a real change or even a rupture in the country's historical trajectory. These issues relate to continuities and discontinuities in the liberal, positivist and ‘progressive’ reforms carried out by successive governments after the War of the Pacific (1879–83), and support a call for a better understanding of the Civilista state, about which our knowledge remains very incomplete.

Second, the transnational framework is an important dimension of the book. The circulation of ideas, individuals and new forms of scientific knowledge, practices and technological innovations are illustrated here from various perspectives. As noted above, the empirical studies that inform the book emphasise the significance of Western modernity for how Peru's dominant elites sought to achieve both material and moral progress. They also demonstrate the variety of obstacles at national and regional/local levels in the way of the implementation of such progress.

Finally, conservation of and access to documents is a crucial issue for the writing of a critical, archive-based history of the Patria Nueva such as this. Several documents are missing from the administrative records, not only because of President Leguía's overthrow by the army in August 1930 and his subsequent imprisonment, but also because of the controversial nature of the Leguiísta regime. The book presents a great range of available sources in Peru (for instance, the records of the Comité Pro-Derecho Indígena ‘Tahuantinsuyo’, press reports and diplomatic and legal documents held in local and regional archives) and elsewhere, opening up new theoretical and methodological approaches.

In conclusion, by choosing not to offer an exhaustive or definitive interpretation of the Patria Nueva, this book provides a stimulating framework for research in the fields of political and sociocultural history, including social sciences. It is also a major contribution to contemporary Peruvian republican history in that it sets the stage for a more systematic study of the political, economic and social changes that occurred in Peru during the 1920s, and resituates a country long perceived as ‘marginal’ within the transnational circulation, appropriation and production of ideas, knowledge and practices.