This is a most welcome and effective volume of essays. Eighteen authors contributed to the project that mostly examines the relationships between intellectuals and power in Peru from the sixteenth century to the present (there are also essays on Antonio Nariño and the Chilean liberal Martín Palma). The task these scholars tackled was to rescue Peruvian intellectual history from the “history of ideas approach”; they view the intellectuals as true pensadores, agents of social and political change actively engaged in society and in conflict with manifestations of power. The contributors do this well by subjecting to historical scrutiny the thesis that Angel Rama articulated in The Lettered City.
Part 1, “La ciudad letrada colonial: Conflictos y disidencias,” contains four essays dedicated to the censorship of Pedro de Oña’s Arauco domado, a study of Pedro de Peralta Barnuevo and the colonial theater, and examination of the extensive personal...
