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1 comments about Between Silver and Guano: Commercial Policy and the State in Postindependence Peru.

1. How do you build up a nation state when the political independence is brought by foreign armies (that was the case of Peru)? and when the local elites didn't have enough sense of nation before that (but corporatism, oh yes, they had so)?. And how the struggles between the local key players (the ancient corporations from the times of viceroys) will determine, finally, the kind of development the country will have when entering in the international trade arena?.

   The theme of this book is peruvian history, from 1820 to 1860 - topic which could be of your interest or could not be -, but what makes this work very valuable is his method to search and check the answers to these previous questions, with the peruvian case.

   This book shows that with no strong national state institutions and frequent elections, the most likely way of popular participation in politics is having frequent civil (and secession) wars, and that with permanent bankruptcy - because there was no sound tax system -, the fragile national state will adopt the policies fitted to the elites who pay the war's bills (in the peruvian case, was the monopolist corporation of Lima's merchants). But this book shows too that after 1840, with the bankruptcy of the special interests - who could make money with unstable governments and more unstable public policies and with no good environtment for trade and investment? -, the peruvian state bureaucracy could chose more open markets policies, restoring its independence, military power against regional militia, and setting the terms of negotiation with every regional elite. Finally, the peruvian national-state, was a consequence of the fatigue of civil wars funders (they learned this is not the best way to protect their interests), and a profitable alliance between bureaucrats and special interests groups, which was funded by the rich trade of guano, after 1840.

   The analysis Mr. Gootenberg makes is so careful anyone interested in theory of games and strategic planning could make every key player's matrix of threats and opportunities, and make them evolving, along key facts and key events. Finally, seems that the peruvian national state was borne from a Nash equilibrium, gotten after a great waste of people dead, economic resources, and time - above time -. That national state was not democratic, nor its policies were planned to improve the condition of the poorer and peasants - even though made free to all black slaves in Peru and ended the colonial taxes on native peasants -. But was the beginning, a feasible project, a common enterprise for the politics of minorities that was, then, peruvian politics. Between 1851 - when we got the national-state and the wreckage that came when the pacific war (1879-1883) began against Chile, happens other story, that this book outlines.

   Interesting and thought-provoking book, with a master analysis of every key player's behavior. And to me - i am a peruvian citizen -, a great book of peruvian history.

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