| Review | Journal of Social History, 40.2

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| Review | Journal of Social History, 40.2 | The History Cooperative

REVIEWS

The Criminals of Lima and their World: The Prison Experience, 1850–1935. By Carlos Aguirre (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005. xi plus 310 pp.).
Many historians and most Latin Americanists will find this book engaging even if they lack interest in criminology. Although the book primarily focuses on the prisons of Lima, Peru between 1850 and 1935, the title is misleading as to its scope. Carlos Aguirre addresses much more than the criminals of Lima and their world, giving readers an understanding of Peruvian society far beyond the walls of its prisons.	1
A synopsis of the book demonstrates this point. The introduction examines Peru's contradictory and exclusionary road towards modernization, as well as the country's oligarchic state and authoritarian tradition during the time period analyzed. Then, the first part of this three-part book delves into the evolution of Peruvian criminology, formed through an eclectic selection of philosophies originating in Europe and the U.S. and colored by Peru's colonial past. In Part Two, Aguirre looks at how authorities and intellectuals viewed Indians, blacks, emancipated slaves, Chinese immigrant workers ( coolies), vagrants and the working poor, and he argues that class and racial biases affected interpretations of criminal behavior. This is hardly surprising, but Aguirre's careful examination of such views vis-à-vis the particular matrix of Peru's heterogeneous society illustrates many of the attitudes toward race and class generally found throughout Peruvian society.	. . .

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