Peru

Peru,officially theRepublic of Peru,is a country in South America, borderingEcuadorandColombiato the north,Brazilto the east,Boliviato the southeast,Chileto the south and the Pacific Ocean on the west.

The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra. ~Horace Walpole

Do the rhetorical quarrels of bourgeois political parties have anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden? ~Mario Vargas Llosa

Quotes

• The persistence into thetwentieth centuryof a specific institutional pattern inimical to growth inMexicoandLatin Americais well illustrated by the fact that, just as in thenineteenth century,the pattern generated economic stagnation and political instability, civil wars and coups, as groups struggled for the benefits of power.Díazfinally lost power to revolutionary forces in 1910. TheMexican Revolutionwas followed by others inBoliviain1952,Cubain1959,andNicaraguain1979.Meanwhile, sustained civil wars raged inColombia,El Salvador,Guatemala,andPeru.Expropriation or the threat of expropriation of assets continued apace, with massagrarian reforms(or attempted reforms) inBolivia,Brazil,Chile,Colombia,Guatemala,Peru, andVenezuela.Revolutions,expropriations, and political instability came along with military governments and various types ofdictatorships.Though there was also a gradual drift toward greaterpolitical rights,it was only in the 1990s that most Latin American countriesbecame democracies,and even then they remain mired in instability.
  • Daron AcemogluandJames A. Robinson,Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Poverty, and Prosperity(2012)

• Mutual payments have been made of the claims awarded by the late joint commission for the settlement of claims between theUnited Statesand Peru. An earnest and cordial friendship continues to exist between the two countries, and such efforts as were in my power have been used to remove misunderstanding and avert a threatened war between Peru andSpain.
  • Abraham Lincoln,fourth annual message to Congress(6 December 1864)

• Do the rhetorical quarrels ofbourgeoispolitical partieshave anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden?
  • Mario Vargas Llosa,The War of the End of the World(1981), trans. Helen R. Lane (Penguin, 1997,ISBN 0-140-26260-1,p. 54

• How captivating is a Peruvian lady swinging in her gaily-woven hammock of grass, extended between two orange-trees, and inhaling the fragrance of a choice cigarro!
  • Herman Melville,"Typee" (1846), (Barnes and Noble, 2008,ISBN 978-0-7607-9021-2,p. 86

• The United States... supportedauthoritarianregimes throughout Central and South America during and after the Cold War in defense of its economic and political interests. In tinyGuatemala,theCentral Intelligence Agencymounted a coup overthrowing the democratically elected government in 1954, and it backed subsequent rightwing governments against small leftist rebel groups for four decades. Roughly 200,000 civilians died. InChile,a CIA-supported couphelped put Gen.Augusto Pinochetin power from 1973 to 1990. In Peru, a fragile democratic government is still unraveling the agency's role in a decade of support for the now-deposed and disgraced president,Alberto K. Fujimori,and his disreputable spy chief,Vladimiro L. Montesinos.
  • John PerkinsinConfessions of an Economic Hit Man2004,p. 200

• The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of theAtlantic.There will, perhaps, be aThucydidesatBoston,aXenophonatNew York,and, in time, aVirgilatMexico,and aNewtonatPeru.At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visitEnglandand give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra.
  • Horace Walpole,English art historian, writer, antiquarian and politician in a letter to Sir Horace Mann (24 November 1774).

• I would not change my native land, for rich Peru with all her gold.
  • Isaac Watts,English Nonconformist, Song 5, "Praise for Birth and Education in a Christian Land", stanza 3. Cf.Psalms119:72 (KJV): "The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver."