A new edition of Guerra de Sombras, the Spanish-language translation of War of Shadows: The Struggle for Utopia in the Peruvian Amazon (University of California Press), co-authored by Eduardo Fernández and Michael F. Brown, was released in Lima, Peru, on November 11 as part of a series of events marking the 50th anniversary of the Law of Native Communities (Ley de Comunidades Nativas) promulgated by the Peruvian government in 1974. The 2024 printing of Guerra de Sombras includes a new preface that reassesses some of the events described in the book in light of developments after its original publication in 1991. This new printing will be published by the Centro Amazónico de Antropología y Aplicación Práctica.

Peru’s Law of Native Communities created an administrative structure that granted permanent land titles to scores of Indigenous Amazonian communities, making it one of the most progressive Native-rights laws in Latin America at the time of its creation. Since then, however, the law has been undermined and challenged by a host of factors, including large-scale colonization of eastern Peru and expansion of mining activities and large-scale extraction of oil and natural gas. These complex dynamics are being explored in a series of lectures and round-table discussions taking place in Lima today through Nov. 11

Copies of Guerra de sombras: La lucha por la utopía en la Amazonía peruana will be available soon for purchase at CAAAP and elsewhere. A downloadable open-access PDF (24 Megabytes) of the entire book is available here.