Religious Regimes in Peru. Religion and State development in a long term perspective and the effects in the Andean Village of Zurite.

This inquiry deals with religion and politics in Peru from the beginning of agrarisation, c. 8000 BC, up until 1991 AD.  It explores state formation and development, the relations between church and state, the internal and external relations within and among the various religious groupings. These national themes are illustrated at a local level by the examination of the history of the Andean village of Zurite, situated near the regional centre Cusco, the former capital of the Inca empire. This very long-term investigation is among the first of its kind, if not the first, that have been produced for any region in the world.

Fred Spier (1952) is a research fellow at the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. For this book he was awarded the Praemium erasmianum Study Prize.