Peru

"The persistence into the twentieth century of a specific institutional pattern inimical to growth in Mexico and Latin America is well illustrated by the fact that, just as in the nineteenth century, the pattern generated economic stagnation and political instability, civil wars and coups, as groups struggled for the benefits of power. Díaz finally lost power to revolutionary forces in 1910. The Mexican Revolution was followed by others in Bolivia in 1952, Cuba in 1959, and Nicaragua in 1979. Meanwhile, sustained civil wars raged in Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Peru. Expropriation or the threat of expropriation of assets continued apace, with mass agrarian reforms (or attempted reforms) in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guatemala, Peru, and Venezuela. Revolutions, expropriations, and political instability came along with military governments and various types of dictatorships. Though there was also a gradual drift toward greater political rights, it was only in the 1990s that most Latin American countries became democracies, and even then they remain mired in instability."

"Mutual payments have been made of the claims awarded by the late joint commission for the settlement of claims between the United States and Peru. An earnest and cordial friendship continues to exist between the two countries, and such efforts as were in my power have been used to remove misunderstanding and avert a threatened war between Peru and Spain."

"Do the rhetorical quarrels of bourgeois political parties have anything to do with the interests of the humble and downtrodden?"

"How captivating is a Peruvian lady swinging in her gaily-woven hammock of grass, extended between two orange-trees, and inhaling the fragrance of a choice cigarro!"

"The United States... supported authoritarian regimes throughout Central and South America during and after the Cold War in defense of its economic and political interests. In tiny Guatemala, the Central Intelligence Agency mounted a coup overthrowing the democratically elected government in 1954, and it backed subsequent rightwing governments against small leftist rebel groups for four decades. Roughly 200,000 civilians died. In Chile, a CIA-supported coup helped put Gen. Augusto Pinochet in power from 1973 to 1990. In Peru, a fragile democratic government is still unraveling the agency's role in a decade of support for the now-deposed and disgraced president, Alberto K. Fujimori, and his disreputable spy chief, Vladimiro L. Montesinos."

"The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will, perhaps, be a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and, in time, a Virgil at Mexico, and a Newton at Peru. At last, some curious traveller from Lima will visit England and give a description of the ruins of St Paul’s, like the editions of Balbec and Palmyra."

"I would not change my native land, for rich Peru with all her gold."

"Given the general inclination of man to abuse power, all government is evil and all authority means tyranny."

"Sprawled across a ridge that once protected the inhabitants from unwanted visitors, surrounded by cliffs shrouded in mist, rise the ruins of a forgotten Inca city that survived the Spanish conquistadors. Looking down from above at the Urubamba River, a narrow strip flowing somewhere far below, for a moment you feel a touch of eternity, but a second later, the hubbub of tourists brings you back from the vanished Inca Empire to the reality of our days."

"The blue of Titicaca is peculiar, not deep and dark as that of the tropical ocean, nor opaque like the blue of , nor like that warm purple of the Aegean which Homer compares to dark red wine, but a clear, cold, crystalline blue, even as is that of the cold skye vaulted over it. Even in the blazing sunlight it had that sort of chilly glitter one sees in the crevasses of a glacier; and the wavelets sparkled like diamonds."

"The lake itself functions almost as a closed system; its only outflow river under the present hydrological situation accounts for less than 5 % of the total water losses. The lake water is subject to strong evaporation, has a of the order of 63 years and has a total dissolved salt content of close to one gram per liter, which distinguishes it from the much fresher waters of the majority of the Andean mountain lakes. ... In addition to its unusual features, it is, according to , one of the birthplaces of mankind. The sun, the moon and the stars were born within its bounds according to the wishes of , creator of the world. Here, after the , mankind took its first steps. The lake was a sacred site for the , who saw it as the end of the earth and a point of fusion where the two concepts of time and space came to be expressed."

"Lake Titicaca is one of the world’s great sights. A vast inland sea improbably located in the sky. If it were in Europe, its surface would be above all the highest peaks in Switzerland and Austria, and its area would measure more than twice the size of all their lakes combined. ... ... If Titicaca was never a serious contender as the source of the Amazon (it’s in the mountains to the north), it is the cultural heart for Indigenous people."