Luis Gerónimo de Oré: The World of an Andean Franciscan from the Frontiers to the Centers of Power (Review)

In 1586, a 32-year-old Franciscan friar named Luis Gerónimo de Oré began his first job in an Indigenous parish in the Colca Valley in the Peruvian Andes as an “outsider and perhaps more alone among the ‘others’ than he had been at any time in his life” (p. 91). When he left the valley nine years later, he carried with him a set of religious manuals, dictionaries, and grammars that he had written and translated into Quechua and Aymara, that would reshape the Catholic Church’s missionary efforts in the Americas.… Read More Luis Gerónimo de Oré: The World of an Andean Franciscan from the Frontiers to the Centers of Power (Review)

The Tupac Amaru Rebellion: Charles Walker

Charles Walker left few stones unturned in The Tupac Amaru Rebellion, an impressive analysis of Spain’s largest colonial rebellion. This essay briefly examines two original arguments and two secondary claims made by Walker that help shape our understanding of an uprising that ultimately reached levels of total violence rarely seen in human history. Walker’s “seemingly… Read More The Tupac Amaru Rebellion: Charles Walker

Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorians Facing the Twenty-First Century: Marc Becker

A collection of essays on the construction and emergence of ethnic identities in the Ecuadorian Andes, edited by Marc Becker. The authors of the volume examine Afro-Ecuadorians and indigenous communities through the lens of politics, culture, religion, gender, and the environment to better understand the array of social problems facing the country. French sociologist Manuela… Read More Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorians Facing the Twenty-First Century: Marc Becker

Ugly Stories of the Peruvian Agrarian Reform (Review)

Enrique Mayer’s Ugly Stories of Peruvian Agrarian Reform, a “people-oriented kind of oral history,” provides a memory study of the 1969 land reforms enacted by Peruvian President Juan Velasco Alvarado. Written from the perspective of historical stakeholders and incorporating Mayer’s lifelong participation in the reforms as an academic observer, he weaves a series of testimonies into a larger narrative chronicling this period of “revolutionary reforms gone astray.” … Read More Ugly Stories of the Peruvian Agrarian Reform (Review)