In his most recent book, John Fisher has come, in some ways, full circle to examine the final decades of Spanish rule in Peru. Over 30 years ago, he published Government and Society in Colonial Peru: The Intendant System 1784–1814 (Athlone, 1970). Although it contains important information about economic life in the late colonial Andes, the book was chiefly an analysis of how the Bourbon reformers instituted the Peruvian intendancies and their impact in the viceroyalty. Bourbon Peru covers some of the same ground but ranges far more widely, both in terms of the themes and the period analyzed. It synthesizes the conclusions Fisher has reached over an eminent career studying the impact of the Bourbon century on Peru. Bourbon Peru, it should be noted, is essentially the same as Fisher’s El Perú borbónico, 1750–1824 (Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, 2000) but lacks the illustrations contained in the latter....
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