The opening and concluding sections of this book contain many superb insights on contemporary Peru. Perhaps this lavish praise stems in part from the fact that so many of Bourricaud’s judgments coincide with my own. In brief, this is his thesis. The Peruvian oligarchy is much more complex, vastly less united, far less able to wield absolute political power, and considerably more open to new members than is generally assumed. Often it is less antagonistic to change than its critics contend, and in the case of the Fernando Belaúnde administration’s agrarian reform law the oligarchy showed its ability to yield to the pressures of the time. Cholo middle sectors may talk a great deal about radical and violent change, but temperamentally and psychologically they are both repelled by violence and suspicious of attempts to destroy the present establishment. At the same time, the slum dwellers of the barriadas that ring Lima are making rapid gains toward assimilation into society and cannot be considered marginal men constituting an internal proletariat. In general these barriada inhabitants are proud of the advances which they have made and not inclined to seek destruction of the politico-socio-economic system that has permitted it. Agitation by the landless rural masses of the sierra has been characterized by prudence and concern for limited goals rather than total revolution. Also violence and unrest largely ceased once an agrarian reform law opened possibilities for Indian communities to reacquire land illegally seized by previous generations of gamonales.
The situation as Bourricaud observes it in Peru leads him to fore-see the possibility that modernization and political development can come about without violent revolution. This appraisal will not appeal to the prophets of the New Left, either in Latin America or the United States.
In between his beginning and conclusion Bourricaud is often disappointing. Instead of offering proofs based on sound sociological, political science, or even historical methodology to bolster his fascinating conjectures, he presents a sketchy story of contemporary political events, a story that often has little relevance to what precedes and follows it. The treatment of the APRA is especially weak, for what Bourricaud does in essence is to write a history of that complex and controversial movement based on some of the political oratory of Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, carefully selected and placed in such a context as to impart a saintly aura to the maximum chief. The section dealing with the far left is much better, and the treatment of Fernando Belaúnde and Acción Popular is brilliant, even though not meticulously researched or placed in proper historical perspective.
On balance, the lengthy middle section of Bourricaud’s book is inadequate sociology, poor political science, and superficial history. This means that the high quality of the beginning and concluding sections must be attributed primarily to the author’s intuition. But intuition is not to be disparaged, and it may well be that Bourricaud has succeeded remarkably well in capturing the essence of today’s changing Peru.
