On April 19th, Chile commemorated the life of Arnold J. Bauer (1931-2015) in a unique ceremony that he would have loved. Some of his closest friends, students, and his wife, Danielle Greenwood, gathered at El Huique hacienda, a beautiful estate (San José del Carmen el Huique) in the Colchagua Valley, two hours outside of Santiago, now a museum.
Por fin están en la web los videos de las presentaciones del coloquio en UC Davis (Hemispheric Institute on the Americas) sobre Sendero Luminoso: Memory, violencia, y política en el Perú, que tuvo lugar el pasado 11 de febrero. Aquí encontrarán las presentaciones de Renzo Aroni, Ruth Borja, y Ricardo Caro Cárdenas y un fascinante diálogo entre José Carlos Agüero y Lurgio Gavilán. También están las breves presentaciones de Zoila Mendoza, Stefano Varese, y la mía así como una intervenciones de Gustavo Gorriti. Como verán, el evento tuvo la sala llena y provocó una buena series de preguntas y comentarios.
February 11, 2016
Hart Hall
UC Davis
On February 11th, the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas will hold an all-day conference on the Shining Path guerrilla movement in Peru. The event brings together renowned scholars, archivists, and journalists to discuss the vicious war that stretched from 1980 to 1992 and its aftermath. Led by Abimael Guzmán or Presidente Gonzalo, the Maoist Shining Path began in Ayacucho in the highlands and spread throughout much of the country. Both their tactics as well as the response by the Peruvian military were brutal, resulting in over 70,000 dead and hundreds of thousands force to flee. Indigenous peasants bore the brunt of this violence and displacement.
Los libros que llegan de sorpresa siempre caen bien. Los que llegan de sorpresa y que serían difícil de encontrar caen major todavía. Y los libros que llegan, son díficiles de conseguir, y que son profundos y buenos son espectaculares. Este último es el caso del flamante libro de Jorge Torres Pereyra, Ayopaya, tierra roja, lágrimas de sangre (Santiago de Chile, 2015).
Much has been written about the Túpac Amaru rebellion, which shook the Andes from 1780–1783. It was the largest indigenous-led anti-colonial rebellion in the Spanish Empire had ever seen and involved tens of thousands of combatants, affecting millions throughout the region. Charles Walker contributes to this scholarship by providing the most up-to-date and detailed narrative rendering of the rebellion and its aftermath.
Publicado originalmente en inglés, en 2014, el más reciente libro del historiador norteamericano Charles Walker ha suscitado gran interés en nuestro país, entre sus colegas y demás académicos, así como entre el público lector. Tanto así, que ya cuenta con una segunda edición en castellano, de formato “popular”. Continue reading
Hace unos días tuve el gusto, por partida doble, de estar en Guadalajara (México) y presentar la nueva edición de bolsillo de La rebelión de Tupac Amaru en la Feria Internacional del Libro que se llevó a cabo en dicha ciudad. La feria me dio la oportunidad de compartir el libro con colegas, amigos y público asistente, quienes no perdieron la oportunidad de preguntar por posibles paralelos entre Tupac Amaru, Micaela Bastidas y los héroes mexicanos Miguel Hidalgo y José Miguel Morelos.
In their introductions, Orin Starn and the late Carlos Iván Degregori use the terms “remarkable” and “exceptional” to refer to Lurgio Gavilán Sánchez and his memoir. This is not hyperbole. Gavilán joined the Shining Path as a twelve-year-old, fighting for three years. When members of the army trapped him on a bleak mountain peak, they took pity on the emaciated, lice-ridden teenager and at the last minute spared him from execution. He was brought into the barracks as a servant or errand boy but, showing his smarts and perseverance, impressed officers enough that they allowed him to become a soldier. This was not his last stunning transition. He left the military after seven years, just when he had a clear path to becoming an officer, to join the Franciscan order. Gavilán underwent the rigorous ordainment process only to leave the priesthood after a few years. He began to study anthropology and is currently a PhD candidate at the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico, where he wrote much of this memoir. It’s an astonishing autobiography, told with style and sensitivity, that illuminates much about late twentieth-century Peru.
The history of Tupac Amaru and his revolt against Spanish colonial order has been the subject of a good number of accounts. Historians focused on the colonial period and the demise of Spanish rule have often portrayed the so-called Great Rebellion as either a fruitless revolution or a pivotal departure moment for the subsequent process of independence. The literature on Tupac Amaru and the wider period of upheaval in colonial southern Peru is so vast it seems that there would be nothing truly novel to stress. Charles Walker has challenged this historiographical stagnation by providing new insights about the logistics, motives, and long-term consequences of the revolt for Indians, Spaniards, and everyone in between while offering, at the same time, a remarkably flawless narrative.
Uno de los argumentos principales en mi libro, La rebelión de Tupac Amaru, es que la iglesia tuvo un papel fundamental en la derrota de los insurgentes. En realidad, no fue la iglesia sino su represenante en Cusco, el Obispo Juan Manuel Moscoso y Peralta, quien diseñó una brillante y eficaz estrategia. Se basaba en mantener a los sacerdotes y sus asistentes en la “zona roja”, así dando alivio e información a los enemigos de la rebelión. Moscoso y Peralta sabía que José Gabriel Condorcanqui y Micaela Bastidas eran fieles que no iban a permitir la muerte de un cura. También excomulgó a Tupac Amaru, medida de gran impacto como explico en el libro.
