In Search of an Inca: Identity and Utopia in the Andes

In Search of an Inca examines how people in the Andean region have invoked the Incas to question and rethink colonialism and injustice, from the time of the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century until the late twentieth century. It stresses the recurrence of the "Andean utopia," that is, the idealization of the precolonial past as an era of harmony, justice, and prosperity and the foundation for political and social agendas for the future. In this award-winning work, Alberto Flores Galindo highlights how different groups imagined the pre-Hispanic world as a model for a new society. These included those conquered by the Spanish in the sixteenth century but also rebels in the colonial and modern era and a heterogeneous group of intellectuals and dissenters. This sweeping and accessible history of the Andes over the last five hundred years offers important reflections on and grounds for comparison of memory, utopianism, and resistance.

Author: Alberto Flores Galindo
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 06/07/2010
Pages: 306
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780521598613

Review Citation(s):
Choice 12/01/2010

About the Author
Aguirre, Carlos: - Carlos Aguirre is Associate Professor of History at the University of Oregon. He obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Minnesota in 1996. In 1999 he was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. He is the author or co-editor of nine books, most recently Dénle duro que no siente: Poder y transgresión en el Perú republicano (2008).Walker, Charles F.: - Charles Walker is a Professor of History and Director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas at the University of California, Davis. His books include Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru and Its Long Aftermath (2008) and Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780-1840 (1999).