While excellent studies exist of Alberto Fujimori's regime in the fields of journalism, human rights, and social sciences, historians have only recently begun to piece together this period. With Los años de Fujimori (1990–2000), José Ragas is at the cutting edge of this historical scholarship, masterfully synthesizing existing literature with newly available primary sources, popular cultural artifacts, newspapers, campaign ads, government propaganda, and contemporaneous photographs in this highly readable and informative history of Fujimori's Peru.
At the heart of Ragas's narrative is an exploration of fujimorismo, a personality-driven doctrine that used national security and economic stability to justify authoritarianism. While the self-coup of April 5, 1992, was surely a fundamental rupture with the return to democracy 12 years earlier, it did not occur in a vacuum. As chapter 1 illustrates, Fujimori's unlikely victory against acclaimed writer Mario Vargas Llosa could be attributed, at least partly, to his collaboration...
