The Lima Reader: History, Culture, Politics
Carlos Aguirre is Professor of History at the University of Oregon and the author of The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds: The Prison Experience, 1850–1935, also published by Duke University Press.
Charles F. Walker is Professor of History, Director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, and MacArthur Foundation Endowed Chair in International Human Rights at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath and Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840, both also published by Duke University Press.
Carlos Aguirre is Professor of History at the University of Oregon and the author of The Criminals of Lima and Their Worlds: The Prison Experience, 1850–1935, also published by Duke University Press.
Charles F. Walker is Professor of History, Director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas, and MacArthur Foundation Endowed Chair in International Human Rights at the University of California, Davis, and the author of Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath and Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840, both also published by Duke University Press.
The introduction draws attention to the “many Limas”—that is, the city’s heterogeneity. For some, Lima is the colonial downtown, with lovely baroque churches and ever fewer colonial mansions. For others, Lima is the shiny San Isidro financial district; the chic Larcomar Mall, which stands above the Pacific Ocean; and the leafy suburbs to the east. The majority of Lima lives elsewhere, in the poorer neighborhoods that stretch out to the north, east, and west or in the tenements that overflow in much of downtown. TheLima Reader seeks to capture these many worlds and the many peoples that constitute Peru’s capital in the twenty-first century. While pointing out its problems past and present, the collection also offers samples of its rich tradition in literature, vibrant popular culture, and gastronomic traditions.
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