Description: Charles Walker examines the largest rebellion in the history of Spain's American empire, led by Latin America's most iconic revolutionary, Tupac Amaru, and his wife. It began in 1780 as a multiclass alliance against European-born usurpers but degenerated into a vicious caste war, leaving a legacy that still influences South American politics today.
Brief description: Charles F. Walker is the MacArthur Foundation Endowed Chair in International Human Rights and Director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas at the University of California, Davis.
Review Quotes: The history of Spain's conquest and three-century grip on indigenous South America is rife with drama, but nowhere is that clash of cultures more vivid than in the story of Tupac Amaru II and his fierce, stubborn war for independence. Walker recreates the life of this remarkable eighteenth-century rebel with a bold sense of narrative and a careful eye for detail. Here is a fascinating study of the prevailing tensions of Tupac Amaru's time--between conqueror and conquered, white and brown, city and mountain, Old World and New World--that still vex South America today.--Marie Arana, author of Bolívar: American Liberator