In the first ninety-three pages of his book, Selden Rodman provides a history of Peru from pre-Columbian times to the present. So brief a treatment of so vast a topic can present little of interest to the specialist or serious student. For this Rodman is not necessarily to be censured, for he had a different clientele in mind.
Still, a greater attempt could have been made to deal adequately with certain aspects of history. Rodman is simplistic in his disparagement of Francisco Pizarro, and his evaluation of the colonial period is based too much on the Black Legend. He is probably unfair to Nicolás de Piérola in dismissing him as a “romantic rascal” (p. 67) and averring that the reforms of his presidency (1895-99) were “minor” (p. 73). On the other hand, he is undoubtedly too generous in writing of the “constructive energy and shrewdness” (p. 84) of President Manuel Odría (1948-56). To Rodman’s lavish praise of Presidents Manuel Pardo (1872-76) and Fernando Belaúnde Terry (1963—) this reviewer takes no exception. It is extremely doubtful, though, that the United States has given sufficient support and encouragement, as Rodman implies, to the Belaúnde administration.
Rodman correctly remarks upon the conservative nature of present-day Aprismo in Peru. His treatment of the movement’s early history, however, is open to question. Contrary to Rodman’s description, for example, much evidence seems to suggest that Luis M. Sánchez Cerro won a reasonably honest contest in 1931 over Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, even though the junta supervising the elections favored the Aprista candidate. Rodman says nothing about the vast popularity of the cholo militarist and thus ignores the conclusion of Jorge Basadre that it was the popular sectors, “above all those of rural background, who determined that Sánchez Cerro would be President of Peru.” (Quoted in A. Moreno Mendiguren, comp., Repertorio de noticias breves sobre personajes peruanos [Lima, 1956], p. 522.)
Rodman’s carelessness in handling Peruvian history tends to cast doubt upon the soundness of a central thesis that “Peru is equipped—as it always has been, potentially—to unite a continent whose tragedy has been its separatism” (p. ix). The carelessness with historical matters carries over into the author’s accenting of Spanish names.
Following the historical section are thirty-two pages of photographic illustrations, many of them quite lovely. These should well serve Rodman’s purpose of arousing the interest of tourists in the wonders and glories of Peru. The final fifty pages of text are devoted to a travelogue in which Rodman skillfully writes about travel conditions and main attractions in Peru.
United States tourists to Peru will find this book interesting and helpful— assuming that they continue on the whole to be a shallow lot not deeply interested in Peruvian history and not really concerned with separating fact from myth. Rodman has thus fulfilled what I suppose was his purpose.
