Peru in Theory

As the editor of Peru in Theory notes, the volume's title is deliberately ambiguous. Nevertheless, the contents are not. This book is not about “Peru in theory” in any obvious sense since, despite the editor's awkward claim that “Peru . . . is a useful category of theoretical analysis” (p. 1), nowhere does Peru explicitly figure in, or as, theory here, and no Peruvian is treated as a theorist. Instead, in each chapter a big name of theory is brought to bear on a reality named Peru, including Alexis de Tocqueville (chapter 2, by Alberto Vergara), Albert O. Hirschman (chapter 3, by José Carlos Orihuela), James C. Scott (chapter 4, by Cecilia Perla), Samuel Huntington (chapter 5, by Omar Awapara Franco and Eduardo Dargent Bocanegra), Ernesto Laclau (chapter 6, by María Balarin), Georges Bataille (chapter 7, by Daniella María Gandolfo), Michel Foucault (chapter 8, by Paulo Drinot), Michael Mann (chapter...