Peru's self-proclaimed "revolution"—surprisingly extensive reforms initiated by the military government—has aroused great interest all over Latin America and the Third World. This book is the first systematic and comprehensive attempt to appraise Peru's current experiment in both national and regional perspective. It compares recent innovative approaches to Peru's problems with the methods used by earlier regimes, providing original and stimulating interpretations of contemporary Peru from the viewpoints of political science, sociology, history, economics, and education. Among the issues considered are the military regime's policies regarding income distribution, foreign investment, education, urbanization, worker-management relations, and land reform. Contributors: Abraham F. Lowenthal, Julio Cotler, Richard Webb, David Collier, Susan Bourque and Scott Palmer, Colin Harding, Robert Drysdale and Robert Myers, Shane Hunt, Peter T. Knight, Jane Jaquette. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Ugly Stories of the Peruvian Agrarian Reform reveals the human drama behind the radical agrarian reform that unfolded in Peru during the final three decades of the twentieth century. That process began in 1969, when the left-leaning military government implemented a drastic program of land expropriation. Seized lands were turned into worker-managed cooperatives. After those cooperatives began to falter and the country returned to civilian rule in the 1980s, members distributed the land among themselves. In 1995–96, as the agrarian reform process was winding down and neoliberal policies were undoing leftist reforms, the Peruvian anthropologist Enrique Mayer traveled throughout the country, interviewing people who had lived through the most tumultuous years of agrarian reform, recording their memories and their stories. While agrarian reform caused enormous upheaval, controversy, and disappointment, it did succeed in breaking up the unjust and oppressive hacienda system. Mayer contends that the demise of that system is as important as the liberation of slaves in the Americas. Mayer interviewed ex-landlords, land expropriators, politicians, government bureaucrats, intellectuals, peasant leaders, activists, ranchers, members of farming families, and others. Weaving their impassioned recollections with his own commentary, he offers a series of dramatic narratives, each one centered around a specific instance of land expropriation, collective enterprise, and disillusion. Although the reform began with high hopes, it was quickly complicated by difficulties including corruption, rural and urban unrest, fights over land, and delays in modernization. As he provides insight into how important historical events are remembered, Mayer re-evaluates Peru’s military government (1969–79), its audacious agrarian reform program, and what that reform meant to Peruvians from all walks of life.

By the end of the 1960s, most of Latin America was under repressive military rule. Conversely, the 1980s have seen the emergence of formal, constitutional democracies in Latin America and the Caribbean. Authoritarians and Democrats describes these changes and the future prospects for constitutional government in Latin America.

Bringing much-needed historical perspectives to debates about an idiosyncratic period in modern Latin American history, scholars from the United States and Peru reassess the meaning and legacy of Peru's left-leaning military dictatorship.

Eight essays continue the scholarly interest in the South American country demonstrated by similar collections published in 1975 and 1983. Social and political scientists, including two from Peru, cover the legacy of past choices in regimes, coalitions, and policies; peasants, workers, and business as social actors in political change; and violence and human rights. A conclusion summarizes the state of the country. Paper edition (unseen), $19.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR