Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru: Population Growth and the Bourbon Reforms

A new generation of scholars is examining the complex outcomes of the Bourbon reforms in the Spanish colonies. Adam Warren’s Medicine and Politics in Colonial Peru: Population Growth and Bourbon Reform is a creative addition to this intriguing literature. Putting doctors and medicine at the center of the story allows Warren to expose the multiple and complicated interactions among numerous social and cultural groups in late Peruvian politics and society. The book takes as its initial premise a study of the role of physicians in constructing a vision (that ultimately failed in this period) of a modern Peru with a healthy, growing population. Exploring this question and its implications from a number of angles, the book also leads us to detailed discussions of a range of fascinating trends, such as conflicts among physicians and popular healers; late colonial, trans national dynamics of policy...