In this vivid ethnography set in contemporary Peru, Susan Stokes provides a compelling analysis of the making and unmaking of class consciousness among the urban poor. Her research strategy is multifaceted; through interviews, participant observation, and survey research she digs deeply into the popular culture of the social activists and shantytown residents she studies. The result is a penetrating look at how social movements evolve, how poor people construct independent political cultures, and how the ideological domination of oppressed classes can shatter.

This work is a new and vital chapter in the growing literature on the formation of social movements. It chronicles the transformation of Peru's poor from a culture of deference and clientelism in the late 1960s to a population mobilized for radical political action today.

Susan Stokes is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

“The book addresses important political changes among the swelling lower-class populations of Third World cities.”—American Journal of Sociology

“An excellent range of useful and up-to-date statistics, a good basic ground for the understanding of Peruvian politics over the past thirty years. . . . The strength of this book is that it discusses the development of social movements, mobilization, attitudes, and the development of the new power structures within the pueblo joven.”—British Bulletin

“This is a tightly written anthropological study of a sub-municipal district called Independencia in Lima, Peru. . . . The book tells the story of the changing impact of state intervention in lower-class political life.”—Academic Library Book Review