"If you seek to navigate through the complex, often confusing terrain of contemporary Peruvian politics, The Peruvian Labyrinth is an essential guidebook. . . . [It] is an accessible volume that effectively unravels some of the enigmas of Peruvian politics-no small feat in a country in which political analysis is often overrun by events."-Political Science Quarterly

"The Peruvian Labyrinth comprises the most up-to-date and thorough examination of Peru available today in English, and perhaps in any language. It offers the newcomer a challenging introduction and the expert much to work with. The chapters are of uniformly high quality and reflect much care on the part of the editors. Altogether an excellent piece of work."-Henry Dietz, University of Texas

"The Peruvian Labyrinth uses a well-chosen variety of angles to explain the complicated factors that made Peru stand out as one of the most troubled countries in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s, and have shaped its partial recovery in the 1990s. They capture a great deal of the devastating process in which particular problems reacted on and aggravated each other to worsen violence, economic deterioration, and political decay. They also bring out well the mixture of gains and losses in the 1990s, as the Fujimori government managed to restore a sense of order and governability but also weakened democratic institutions, the violence of Sendero Luminoso was checked but governmental abuses of human rights took ominous new turns, and the economy recovered but in perhaps even more unequal ways than in the past. The individual chapters are all clearly written, raise important questions, and convey a realistic picture of an exceedingly complex process."-John Sheahan, Williams College

A country perceived as having unusually complex political, economic, and social problems, Peru has long fascinated social scientists. The Peruvian Labyrinth brings together a new generation of scholars to explore the multifaceted Peruvian "experiment" as it has evolved further, in often dramatic ways, in the 1980s and 1990s.

The volume focuses special attention on the administration of Albert Fujimori, who suspended the constitution in 1992, two years after he first became president, but then was reelected in 1995. The experience of Peru under his regime raises important questions about the nature of democracy in Latin America, the challenges of economic and political reform, and the prospects for combining stable democratic governance and sustained development.

Topics covered in the volume include the legacies of democratic transitions, human rights and political violence, the decline of the Shining Path, the Fujimori "autogolpe," the changing roles of business and organized labor, the political impact of the informal sector, changes in the agrarian sector, and the shift in economic strategies away from developmentalism and toward neoliberalism.

Contributors are Carmen Rosa Balbi, Maxwell A. Cameron, Carlos Ivan Degregori, Francisco Durand, Christine Hunefeldt, Philip Mauceri, Kenneth Roberts and Mark Peceny, and Carol Wise.