A Brief History of Perú (My personal summary of the book)

A Brief History of Peru

Fernando Rosas F.

Translated by Christopher and Helen Ryan

Notes: I purchased this book on the last day of my trip to Peru this year, on 3rd May, at the airport as I was waiting to leave the country. I wish I had come across this book before starting my trip. I would perhaps have visited some places that I did not even know about earlier, and taken greater interest in some that I visited.

This is not a summary of the book in the classic sense. It is a summary for my personal reference. There are sections of great interest to me, such as early civilizations, Inca empire, Spanish Conquest and colonization, and the freedom movement. After the freedom movement, the politics of Peru was of little interest to me, and I have merely glossed over those aspects. Similarly, the story of feud between Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro, though an important part of the history of Peru, was of no significant interest to me.

In some places, I have added some information gleaned from other sources. History of politics is almost always controversial and subject to different interpretations, depending on your beliefs, so it is possible that not everyone agrees with what Fernando Rosas has written. I am neutral as far as Peruvian politics is concerned, so there is no bias in my mind any which way.

One glaring omission in the book is an index at the end. Without that, if I needed to refer to some term or concept encountered elsewhere, I had no way of finding that. I really hate that in this book. 

Also, I spotted a few errors in the book, surprisingly. And there are inconsistencies; in at least one or two cases the same event (for example, the killing of Atahualpa) is reported differently with strikingly different colors at different places.

Finally, I have not had the patience to proof-read this document. There may be many errors of grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. Some day, I'll fix those.

--September 2, 2019

Geography

Area 1.2 million sqkm

Population about 28 million.

• Three geographical units: coast (12% area), Andes (30%), Amazonian jungles (58%). 
• The coast: from north to south, a strip of level and narrow desert, so arid that it does not sustain any visible form of vegetation, borders the Pacific Ocean, but crossed by rivers which feed fertile valleys. Rain is scanty and the sky is constantly cloudy, particularly in the central zone and the capital.
• Andes: extend from southern Chile. Mountains (there are two parallel ranges of them) are mostly uncultivable, but the valleys in the middle have a wide variety of animal and vegetable life, due to regular rains between January and March. Cusco and Lake Titicaca are examples of this, and these two play an important role in ancient history.
• Amazonian jungles, also known as "la montaña". This area belongs to the great basin of Amazon; has exuberant tropical vegetation; has many communities with very limited contact with the outside world; Incan chronicles mention various military campaigns against these tribes.

Early Civilizations

• Human presence in Andean regions is earlier than 9,000 BC. Small groups of Asians crossed the Bering Straits through a then-existing land bridge. 
• First settlers were hunter-gatherers. Settlements found as high as 4,300 meters at Pachamachay.
• Cultivation of plants around 8,000 BC. The oldest Peruvian art is the work of these inhabitants (drawings of the hunt).
• First urban complex was Caral, to the north of Lima, 2,500 BC.
• 800 BC, a new and important cultural centre emerged in the northern mountain range of Chavin de Huántar. Impressive complex, carefully located by its architects at the confluence of two rivers. Subterranean canals under the principle temple. The great temple was considered by the Andeans as the centre of the world, and was the most revered place of the era; has a notable collection of ceramics, lovely iconography. Chavin began to decline after 500 years.
• Between 200 BC and 600 AD, there was an ethnic renaissance or flowering in the territory of Peru, including Paracsas, Nazca, and others.

Paracas

• Paracas culture emerged on the southern coast, with Ica as its most important center.
• Textile art has great narrative content, figures are iconogrpahic symbols of mythical entities: divine monsters, dancing warriors with trophy heads, birds, fish, air-borne demons who vomit snakes. Idea of death occupied a central theme.
• Fundamental basis was agriculture, with a complex and very advanced system of irrigation.
• Funeral chambers, about 30-40 bodies per tomb, buried at a depth of 3-5 meters.
• Indications of different social classes.
• Feminine presence predominated.
• Most famous aspect is the practice of trepanation (drilling of the cranium). About 40% of the exhumed cadavers show signs of trepanation. This was perhaps related to some magical rites.
• Also famous for the fabrics, for the exceptional technique employed in the thread, the tint and the weaving. Using 7 colours, up to 190 shades were created. The chromatic balance is perfect. 

Nazca

• 400 km south of Lima, about 75 kilometers (the book wrongly says 75 meters --Pradyumn) from the coast, at an altitude of 500 meters, lies an elevated plain of desert landscape and seemingly endless dunes. Water is scarce, drought is a common phenomenon, and a good part of its only river runs underground. 
• Nazca lines. In 1926, from an airplane, gigantic drawings distributed in a circular fashion were spotted. Figurative silhouettes of plants and animals (fish, birds, a monkey, a spider, some figures very difficult to identify), together with straight lines stretching in all directions. An enormous bird whose silhouette reaches 300 meters in length. To this day no archaeologist has been able to put forth a plausible explanation. Inexhaustible speculation. Later, in the most remote deserts of Chile, a strange group of drawings, similar to the Nazca lines, were discovered.
• Ceramic art, noted for its fine pottery.
• After about 500 years, the Nazca culture declined, perhaps due to natural phenomena such as the advance of the desert.

Moche 

• The Moche civilisation had its center to the north of Lima. 
• Stunning aspects of this culture came to light in 1987 thanks to some looters.
• Some huaqueros (looters of huacas) penetrated in one of the tombs into the interior of a pyramid. 
• The interior of the pyramid had a ceiling constructed with great technical sophistication and each chamber displayed archaeological variants. A mortuary chamber had ornaments of gold and silver, antique sculptures inlaid with precious stones. 
• The looters left with eleven sacks full of treasure. Soon other hunters also entered the scene.
• Two weeks later the police approached the archaeologist Walter Alva, director of a regional museum. Alva was speechless on realizing that the looters had discovered something whose very existence was doubted by most archaeologists: the intact tomb of a Lord of Mochica.
• Later, also found a heavy scepter of copper one meter in length, a fantastic scenery painted on a wall, of a supernatural creature, half cat, half reptile, copulating with a woman over a rising moon. This creature is the supreme being of the Moche in its most terrible incarnation. 
• Tombs with bodies of adult men and women, with various ornaments, skull of a llama, skeletons of a dog and a snake.
• Moche culture was certainly very refined and complex.
• Sophisticated ceramics with lavish iconography. 
• Prisoners of war were ceremonially sacrificed, their throats were cut and their blood was drunk.
• Supreme God called Ai Apaec.

Tiahuanco and Huari

• Post the Moche era, the Tiahuanco and Huari cultures prospered.
• Tiahuanco empire near Lake Titicaca. Was the highest capital of the ancient world at 3,789 meters.
• A city of imposing magnificence, first planned monumental city of South America.
• Built with massive structures of stone, weighing up to 130 tonnes, dragged by a great army of workers, using ramps and rollers.
• The empire possessed a network of administrative centres, satellite cities and colonial economies. 
• Huari empire had an urban centre with between 20,000 and 70,000 inhabitants. Impressive town planning.

Chimú

• After the breakdown of the Tiahuanaco-Huari culture, between 850 and 900 AD, over the ruins of the Moche culture arose a new realm called Chimú. Capital Chan Chan, near today's Trujillo.
• Chan Chan was a great centre for production of artisan objects of metal (bronze, gold and silver) and fabric. 
• Musical instruments were a recurring motif in the pictorial art.
• Impressive systems of storage, transportation and distribution of goods.
• Chimú artisans were greatly admired by the Incas and many were taken to Cuzco.
• Chimú culture was marine oriented. 
• Power was held by a sovereign and a group of high-ranking nobles.
• In 1470, the last Chimú ruler Minchancamán succumbed to the Incan expansion, taken to Cuzco and married to a daughter of the Inca.
• Rebellion against Incan occupation. Thereafter people of the coastal communities were not permitted to bear arms. Many inhabitants of Chimú were relocated to Cuzco.

The Incan Empire

• The Incans originated from a small tribe of uncertain origins.
• Their native language, Quechua (before 1560 it was called runasimi), was an unwritten language. 
• Believed that they had their roots in the region of Lake titicaca from where they began to gradually expand into the Cusco valley about 1200. Later subjugated and absorbed other various neighbouring peoples including Ayarmacas.
• Initial Inca rulers lived in Coricancha in Cusco.
• Incans possibly had two simultaneous sovereigns connected to hanan saya (higher) and hurin saya (lower). The Inca hanan lived outside of Cusco, the hurin in the sacred city; the hanan was a conqueror, the hurin never moved from Cusco and was bound to sacred rituals.
• Ayarmacas were the fiercest of the enemies of the initial Inca sovereigns.
• The ninth Inca ruler Pachacutec ruled from 1438 to 1471 and significantly transformed the empire (called Tahuantinsuyo). Corikancha was exquisitely redecorated and became known as the Temple of the Sun. It housed gold statues of past rulers, splendidly adorned and fully armed, a new image of the sun God Inti was cast in pure gold and before this God llamas and magnificent vestments were burned and numerous children were buried alive in sacrifice.
• The mummies of the dead Inca rulers were conserved by a group called panaca. The mummy of the monarch was splendidly adorned, received meticulous care during the day, his concubines served what had been his favourite dishes as if he was alive. His properties, fields of coca and other goods of ownership continued to belong to him. The mummy even had a real voice through his oracles and participated in social life and governance.
• The tenth monarch Túpac Yupanqui was a brilliant commander. At his death (1493 --PS) the vast empire extended from the north of Ecuador to the centre of Chile. 
• The 11th ruler Huayna Cápac died (in 1524 --PS), possibly of smallpox imported by the first Spanish visitors.
• The 12th ruler Huáscar was defeated and killed (in 1532 -- PS) by his illegitimate half brother Atahualpa, the last Inca ruler.
• Population estimated to be between 9 and 12 million.
• Atahualpa was killed by the Spanish soldiers under the pretext that he was a usurper and a tyrant who had killed his half brother who was the legitimate heir. The Spanish King wrote in 1534 to Puzarro: The death of Atahualpa by yourself, sir, has displeased me".
• Tahuantinsuyo is the term for the state.
• In the Incan religious Pantheon the god Inti is one of a triad of gods. the other two were Viracocha, god of creation, and Illapa, god of the weather and the creator of rains. Other important deities were Mama Quilla, the moon, and Panchamama, mother earth.
• Inti was the son of the supreme creator and the father of the Incas.
• Viracocha came out of the lake Titicaca when all was dark and created and recreated the sun and the moon and created new beings from rocks.
• Spirits lived in sacred sites called huacas. The huacas could be mountains, springs, lakes, rocks, antique ruins or caves, as well as man-made effigies, mummies and shrines. The huacas were frequently made into temples.
• The most magnificent festival was Inti Raymi, to celebrate the harvest of corn in June. It involves singing by the nobles and the Inca when the sun set.
• The incans had no money, markets, or even taxes at least in any Western sense. There was an abundance of agriculture production, livestock and other natural resources. There was no market but an interchange based on reciprocity. The goods were measured in terms of human energy expended, not money.
• A huge system of roads allowed for an efficient distribution of goods. The central artery of the empire was the road from Cusco to Quito, along which were located many and great Incan administrative centers. Intersecting roads connected to the valleys to both the east and the west, facilitating the exchange of products from distinct regions.
• Along the routes, at intervals of a day's journey, tambus were built which were inns and centres for storing arms, clothing and foods necessary for the functioning of the administration of the empire.
• At varying intervals there were way-stations or chasquis, consisting of a postal system with runners to speedily carry messages and transport small objects over great distances in a short period of time.
• Mita. A system of community of work; working in rotation in which all couples were required to take part, mandatory public service in the society of the Incan empire.
• Wealth and poverty did not depend on individual possibilities of accumulation, but on access to labor time provided by the relationships and obligations of kinship. "Poor" in Quechua is huaccha = orphan. Orphan-hood is poverty with social isolation. Wealth is when you have family and access to reciprocity and redistribution.
• Taxes were paid by a person in the form of his work or his trade, or the time spent in the service of the King or his Republic.
• Andean societies worked as teams in a scattered fashion.
• Imperial cohesion was reinforced by the general use of the Quechua language. After the conquest the Spaniards also propagated the use of Quechua the viceroy Francisco Toledo ordered that it be the language of evangelization and established classes for its teaching at the University of San Marcos in Lima and also had the catechism printed in Quechua.

The Conquest

• 12 April 1492: Christopher Columbus lands in the new continent.
• 1532: Francisco Pizarro, an adventurer from Extremadura founded the first Spanish city called San Miguel de Tangatara (now Piura). He had already been living in the new world for 8 years, preparing for the conquest of "the indies".
• He learned of the civil war between Huáscar and Atahualpa. 
• Pizarro set a trap for Atahualpa in Cajamarca and with only 178 soldiers he was able to capture Atahualpaf amid an army of more than 50 thousand natives.
• Atahualpa had been so confident and complacent about his victory that he sent an army equipped only with slings and rocks against the enemy who had guns. 
• Atahualpa planned to kill all the Spaniards except three: (1) a blacksmith, (2) a barber and (3) a great rider and tamer of horses. Reason? (1) They had not emerged from the bronze age so mastery of iron was valuable. (2) the art of rejuvenation. (3) the secret of taming horses. Three choices of the Inca spirit: work, beauty and play within a helenic synthesis.
• The clearest sign of triumph among the Inca was to drink from the skull of the enemy and to make a drum out of his skin. There was no mercy for enemy prisoners of war.
• Pizarro treated the Inca calmly and with open cordiality. Atahualpa had his servants with him, he continued to receive visitors, issued orders. At his order Huåscar was killed. Indians marched from all over the kingdom with the gold for ransom. 
• Atahualpa was indicted and condemned in only one day on a false charge of killing a Spaniard. Pizarro did not want to kill the Inca and took a vote from his soldiers who voted 350-50 for killing him.
• 1535: Pizarro founded the city of Lima and made it the viceroyal capital.
• Contrary to his desire and expectations, the governorship of Peru did not get passed to his descendants. His sons died without achieving adulthood and the feminine line through his daughter was extinguished in 3 generations. Due to a revolt by Gonzalo Pizarro (Francisco's illegitimate half-brother --Pradyumn), two years after Francisco Pizarro's death an order was passed that there will be no trace of the Pizarro name in Peru.

The Colonial Order

• Demographic crisis. Population of modern day Peru: from an estimated 9 million in 1530, was reduced to about 600,000 by 1620. Reasons: small pox and measles to which the natives had no immunity; calamity of war; profound psychological demoralization of the indigeneous population; encomiendas; exploitation of the populace in the villages for a wide range of undertakings; suicides by indians; some women killing their children at birth to liberate them from the trials that they would suffer.
• By 1745, the natives' population in Peru had further fallen to about 350,000, before starting to rise.
• Encomiendas. Spanish labour system that incentivized the Spaniards not only for the conquest, but also to establish themselves in the conquered territory, by granting them ownership of the land and giving authority over the inhabitants to collect tributes from them. 
• Encomendero. A beneficiary of the system of encomiendas.
• Conquistador. A person who participated in a conquest.
• Curacas: the primary indian leaders who had acted as intermediaries between the Incan state and the local ethnic community.
• Corregidor. Magistrates sent by the King to these territories.
• The encomenderos quickly realized that good relations with the curacas insured a better flow of goods and labor; in this fashion they applied rules of "generosity" in order to create dependency and reciprocity. The curacas retained a large part of their historic status as elites and achieved an important place in the colonial society.
• Colonial mita. Spaniards adopted the Incan mita system to suit themselves. Under the Inca system, mita workers received support from the State; the Spaniards gave them nothing for their work.
• 1545: fabulous silver mines discovered in Potosi, in today's Bolivia. Under the guise of mita, natives were required to provide compulsory labour. This funded the Spanish war machine in Europe. Viceroy of Peru even stated that "without the mines, there is no Peru". Conditions of workers there was deplorable. Metaphors compared Potosi to a hungry monster who gulped down the native population.
• 1563: mercury mines of Huancavelica were discovered.
• There were voices of sanity too in Spain. Some social reformers voiced strong opposition to the exploitation of the natives from as early as 1542 (Bartelomé de las Casas, Domingo de Santo Tomás being some of them). Their writings and speeches did make some differences to the policies of the Spanish kingdom.
• Corruption. Significant increase in corruption among the encomiendas as well as corregidores, and exploitation of the natives. A phrase came up "curaca, cura, corregidor, todo lo peor!" (the boss, the priest, the magistrate, all for the worst). Eventually the corregidores became magistrate-merchants.
• Slavery. Slave traffic from Africa (mainly Guinea and Angola) gathered pace from around 1570. By 1640 there were about 30,000 slaves in Peru.
• In 1569, the new viceroy Francisco de Toledo initiated wide-ranging reforms of public policy, to the benefit of the Spanish interests, and to the disadvantage of the natives. Key elements: (1) resettlements, (2) regulate and monetize the tax system, (3) forced labor for the sectors crucial to the economy, in particular the silver mines.
• Resettlements. Decrees of forcibly resettling large populations, from small and dispersed villages, to urban centers; this was considered a fundamental element of civilization. Apart from tearing into their traditional ways of life, it also exposed the large populations of resettlers to the danger of epidemics. 
• The reduction of indigenous villages also ended the encomienda system, transferring the effective contol of the native labor from the encomendero to the State. This also facilitated evangelization.
• Tax system reform. Fixed tax based on each division's capacity to pay, determined by a survey of the resources every two to five years. The tax was no longer in kind, but in money.
• Francisco de Toledo was known for his heavy-handedness in dealing with the natives. Demographic crisis started in this period. 
• Crillos. Citizens of Spanish descent born in the New World. Some of them actively took up the causes of the natives, even supported the rebels in the 17th and 18th centuries.
• Peninsulars. Spanish born people.
• (Mestizo. A person of mixed race, specially one having Spanish and indigenous descent. Most people in Peru and Ecuador are mestizos. --Pradyumn)
• Thanks to the changes in intellectual climate in Europe, such as the spread of journalism and the practice of reading, the ideas of Enlightenment began to spread, at first slowly and cautiously and then with greater vigor and energy. Books and periodicals constituted significant vehicles in the modernization of the social life in Peru. 
• (There are sections on literature, theater, motifs in churches, music in the book, pages 137-142, but I have chosen to omit them from my summary.)
• Rebellions. Manco Inca, brother of Atahualpa and Huascar led a rebellion during the time of Francisco Pizarro; his descendents are known as "The Incas of Vilcabamba" (Vilcabamba is a place in the southern mountains of Peru, where Manco Inca took refuge after his rebellion was put down). Various local insurrections in the 17th century.
• Evangelism. Spiritual conquest of the natives by various orders of Christian missionaries, designed to carry out the proselytizing or "civilizing" of the natives with methods that combined persuasion and coercion. Repression of the Andean religions, which began almost immediately after the conquest, gathered pace in 1607.

Independence

(Before starting reading this chapter, which disappointingly for me occupies 60% of the book, I knew that my interest is likely to gradually diminish after reading about the independence movement, the attainment of independence, and the first few decades thereafter. Only a passing interest in the successive regimes of the independent Peru and its wars. Perhaps the last two or three decades may be of somewhat greater interest to me due to the contemporariness.)

• The 18th century experienced up to a 150 indigenous rebellions, caused by the discontent provoked by the increased colonial extortions.
• Túpac Amaru II. A symbol of emancipation in Peru. His name has inspired other movements worldwide: political, subversive and artistic. His name means "royal serpent" in Quechua. His original name was Gabriel Condorcanqui. He initiated an uprising in 1780 which shook all of viceregal Peru to its foundations, and radiated throughout the high plains of Bolivia, northern Argentina and Chile.The uprising left an estimated 100,000 dead from a population of one million (ten percent!).
• Túpac Amaru II was a landowner and a curaca of moderate fortune. He had studied at the University of San Marcos, where he came to know of the new ideas circulating in Europe.
• After about 250 years of colonial domination, the revolt began with the execution of a corregidor known to be abusive to the Indians. Túpac aimed to unite all the "Americans" including indians, mestizos, blacks and the criollos against the peninsular Spaniards. 
• But what actually happened was that the poverty-stricken indians who formed the bulk of the army, directed their indiscriminate fury against all the manifestations of colonial oppression.They destroyed public works, mines, estates, convents, churches, and fell equally upon Spaniards and criollos, mestizos and indigenous who dressed in the Spanish manner.
• Within six months, Túpac was apprehended and executed. But the rebellion continued with even greater vigor and violence.
• The defeat of Túpac (1) opened a deep chasm between the criollos and the indians, (2) accelerated the destruction of the traditional indigenous elite; (3) led to the colonial government being ordered to forcefully Hispanicize the indigenous population in five years and eliminate all cultural elements which might remind them of their past. 
• The elimination of the indigenous elites (1) cancelled out the possibility of developing an indigenous national plan, (2) reinforced the equivalency of "indian" and "poor which would mark the major socio-cultural problem in Peru's history.
• 1808: Napoleon Bonapart's invasion of Spain, capture of King Charlev IV and his son Ferdinand VII, imposition of Joseph Bonaparte as the new King (the book wrongly says 1880). 
• The collapse of the Spanish monarchy inspired criollos to overthrow all Spanish authority and form local governments in cities such as La Paz, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Caracas and Quito; all except in Lima.
• 1810: Chile broke from Spanish rule.
• The army of San Martin (a criollo --Pradyumn) took over Lima in 1821. 
• 28 July 1821. San Martin proclaimed independence, assumed command as the Protector of the Independence of Peru, and called for the election of a congress.
• The first laws were: freedom for all the children of slaves, abolition of the indigenous tributes and of forced labor, declaration that all indians would be called Peruvians, expulsion of all peninsulars from the country and confiscation of their properties.
• Economic paralysis followed soon. San Martin's health deteriorated. He had a meeting in Guayaquil with Simon Bolivar to discuss how to liberate the rest of Peru, much of which was still under the control of the viceroy. In September 1822, San Martin resigned.
• 1823: Constitution adopted. Established a government which was republican and unitary. State was divided into three powers: legislative, executive and judicial. Established the position of the President of the Republic to exercise executive power. Roman Catholicism was established as the only official religion of the State.
• September 1823: Simon Bolivar was invited to come to Peru. Peru had two presidents and a virtually collapsed economy. Bolivar was named military dictator (really? --Pradyumn) and Commander of the Armed Forces. Thanks to him, Peru achieved absolute independence from Spain in 1824.

(Notes to self: at this point of time, I appreciate Nehru and Patel even more. The kind of chaos that existed in Peru and most South American countries after independence, economic collapse, infighting among different ideologies and interest groups, cycles of democracy and dictatorship, all of this could have easily happened in India. It was even more likely here than there given the diverse subcultures within the country. But we averted that and we must appreciate the vision of Nehru and Patel, despite the various other failings, in fact, disasters, of Nehru in particular.)

• Mestizos had, over the years, become great exploiters of the indigenous.
• The lands of the natives were plundered by the replublican latifundistas (?) who, during the following decades drove a good part of the indigenous population onto the poorest lands, and became powerful agents for extending personal servitude, which Bolivar wanted to suppress.
• Profound irony: Criollos led the independence movement. They called themselves as spanish Americans. They had risen against the Spanish peninsulars not because they were different but because they felt marginalized by the structures of colonial power. Criollos of Lima had nothing in common with an indian of Puno or Apurimac. Everything separated them: language, clothes, culture, religious beliefs. And yet, the criollos had to break with the Spanish peninsulars, with whom they were so similar, in order to construct a nation with the indians, with whom they had nothing in common.
• Solution: a republic that excluded the indians (90% of the population) and black slaves! Only the criollos and the mestizos were part of the nation!!!
• 1836: Peru and Bolivia united into a confederation by General Andrés Santa Cruz (governed Bolivia from 1829-39).
• 1837, 38: Chile saw the confederation as a military threat, as well as a challenge to its commercial hegemony of the Pacific Ocean, unsuccessfully attacked the confederation.
• 1839: the army of Santa Cruz was crushed at the battle of Yungay, thus ending the confederation.
• 1840-79. Prosperity due to sudden growth in demand in Europe for guano (dried excrement of seabirds) as fertilizer; islands off Chincha had millions of tons of these. Rags to riches: and when guano supply was exhausted, boom to bust.
• 1879-83: War of the Pacific. Originally between Chile and Bolivia. But Peru had a treaty of mutual alliance with Bolivia, and refused to renounce the treaty. So Chile, backed by Great Britain, declared war on Peru also. Lima captured by Chile in 1881.the war ended with Peru ceding territory to Chile in a treaty.
• At the end of the war, Peru was in it's most serious crisis with its economy in ruins.
• The story of Julio César Arana (pg 202-205), a rubber tree zone owner is the most horrifying one in the entire book. What a cruel man! 
• It seems until 1931 only properry owners had the right to vote (pg 222).
• (Most of the material about changing political scenarios is extremely boring for me and I have skimmed through it very quickly. There may be some sections here and there which could have been of interest to me but may have escaped my attention. Who wants to wade through boring details of the often dirty politics, coup d'etat, elections, assassinations, class warfare, barbarity, insurgency, corruption, terror, wars, intolerance, cycles of democracy and dictatorship, frauds, guerrilla warfare, occasional reforms, interference by USA, torture, sexual violence, etc in the Peru of the last 200 years. It makes for a sad, depressing and at times repulsive reading. A country in tragic, long-running, self-imposed chaos of one kind or the other.)
• 1932: civil war.
• 1990-2000: Alberto Fujimori becomes President, with no previous political experience, riding on the complete lack of credibility of the political class and erosion of political parties. His Fuji-shock policies on the economy was devastating. He issued draconian laws. The terror / revolutionary communist group Shining Path made big inroads, particularly in Lima. In 1992 he suspended the Constitution, closed down Congress, and got most opposition leaders arrested. His measures were very popular in Peru. Had an armed conflict with Ecuador.
• Voting is mandatory in Peru.
• 2002-06. Presidency of Alejandro Toledo. Corruption, sexual and drug scandals involving him. Protests against his policies. Denied paternity claims of a 13-year old daughter from an extramarital affair but later forced to acknowledge. Economy improved, his presidency worsened.
• 2006-11. Presidency of Alan Garcia. Corruption charges. Fujimori arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru to face criminal charges. So acknowledged having fathered a child outside his marriage! Later faced an upsurge of social protests against corruption scandals and his policies, leading to rancor and violence. (Again, this section is pretty boring, sad, at times sickening or depressing to read. I have hurriedly skimmed through these parts. Reading about politics in Peru makes the politics in India appear like extremely virtuous. I believe it is a similar story in most of South America. )
• 2011-16: presidency of Ollanta Moises Humala Tasso. Overall his tenure seems to be positively viewed.
• 2016-current. Presidency of Pedro Pablo Kuczynsky. Defeated Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former president by 0.25% margin.

The Challenges

• Peru is a country very rich in natural resources. But the riches have not led to the betterment of all Peruvians, nor have they generated employment or given impetus to other sectors of the economy.
• Equality of rights is a remote dream in Peru. 
• In the south of Lima, one finds La Molina, a wealthy urbanization and, crossing the road, a few meters away in the first slopes of the small mountains of the area, one encounters the very poorest neighborhoods of the city; they are separated from each other by a fence covered with barbed wire and topped with shards of broken glass. A frontier between two worlds, a symbol of social segregation and division, a protective boundary for the inhabitants of La Molina, or, perhaps, a containment of poverty. 
• Inequality between men and women. The number of women active in public life is limited. Women earn much less than men.
• Regional and ethnic identities are another barbed wire fence which makes difficult social access.
• Racism is found everywhere and heightens social divisions. There is a close relationship between skin color and social status.
• Indigenous groups in the jungles have a strong relationship with their land and their way of life. They are particularly cautious in their dealings with the Peruvian State, and maintain a prudent distance from the political parties of all leanings. Hence they are totally without any political representation.
• Migration to Lima, Arequipa, Chiclayo, a recent phenomenon, induced by the desire to escape poverty of rural Peru and political violence.