Carlos Aguirre is Professor of History at the University of Oregon and the author of
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
Carlos Aguirre is Professor of History at the University of Oregon and the author of
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
Interlude: Nostalgia and Its Discontents
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Published:April 2017
Since at least the second half of the nineteenth century, writers and commentators as well as ordinary people constructed an idealized representation of old, colonial Lima as a city of beauty, charm, and prosperity. Even life among poor and working-class people, popular customs, and picaresque behavior were imagined as part of a familiar, friendly urban space, one whose continuity was threatened by economic progress, urban growth, political changes, and the overall fascination with “modern” lifestyles. Traditionalist Ricardo Palma has been singled out as one of the most effective inventors of the myth of the “old Lima,” but he was certainly not the only one. An entire genre developed as a result of this nostalgia for times past.
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