Cátedra de Mariátegui, Lima, reproduces introductory sections of War of Shadows/Guerra de Sombras.
August 23, 2025

The Cátedra José Carlos Mariátegui, an organization dedicated to promoting the work of one of Perú’s most influential thinkers, has reproduced introductory sections (Introduction to the 2nd ed. & Chapter 1) of Eduardo Fernández and Michael Brown’s book Guerra de Sombras, on its website. Mariátegui (1894-1930) is best known for his book Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality, but he also authored many shorter works that assessed Perú’s political and cultural history from a socialist perspective.

Mariátegui is considered one of Latin America’s foundational socialist thinkers, so I presume that the Cátedra found our book of interest because of its detailed assessment of a failed Peruvian Marxist uprising in the mid-1960s and the engagement of the revolutionaries with the Asháninka and Nomatsiguenga Indigenous peoples of eastern Perú.

The entire second edition of the Spanish version of War of Shadows can be downloaded here at no cost or purchased in bookstores in Perú and elsewhere in Latin America. The original English-language version remains available in paper from the University of California Press.

Photo: Mariátegui and his four sons, 1917. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, PE PEAJCM JCM-F-03-04-4.1-4.1.5-041(A).jpg