Charles F. Walker, “The Tupac Amaru Rebellion” (Harvard UP, 2014)

Charles F. Walker‘s book The Tupac Amaru Rebellion (Harvard University Press, 2014) charts the rise, fall, and legacy of a massive uprising in colonial Peru. Indigenous societies in the Andes labored under heavy taxes, tributes, and discrimination imposed by the Spanish imperial state. Walker’s monograph follows the rebellion of a multiethnic group of indigenous, mestizo, and creole subjects, led by José Gabriel Tupac Amaru in 1780. Along with his wife Micaela Bastidas, Amaru’s leadership posed a serious challenge to Viceroyalty of Peru. Although ultimately unsuccessful, Amaru’s rebellion inspired and gave strength to other uprisings in the Andes. With an engaging narrative of the rebellion’s progress, Walker provides a vivid explanation of one of the largest and most important colonial rebellions in the eighteenth-century Americas.