This work is the first to focus on the Shining Path in Peru’s northern highlands, and it is likely also to be definitive. The author’s goal is to explore how a consideration of the northern highlands modifies our understanding of the insurgency’s rise (1979 – 92) and its retreat (1992 – 97). Heretofore, our understanding was based on the Shining Path’s trajectory primarily in the southern highlands (where it built its largest social base) and secondarily in the central highlands.
The book is the fruit of Taylor’s decades of research in the Cajabamba-Huamachuco region of Peru, which is near the northern-highlands city of Cajamarca. His 1979 doctoral dissertation analyzed trends in the economic development of Cajamarca through 1976. This study includes a particularly rich analysis of the impact of the 1970s agrarian reform in Cajamarca, emphasizing the reduction in land concentration but also the continued landlessness of peasant majorities and...
