The department of Puno in southern Peru is an area oriented to livestock and agricultural production, peopled by an Indian peasant mass and a dominant minority of culturally Westernized mestizos. A small but growing hybrid group, the cholos, bridged the cultural gap and collaborated with dissident merchant elements within the mestizo group to challenge the economic, social, and political order of the altiplano (high plateau) system. Politics in the Altiplano analyzes the sources of conflict and political change in the plural society as it underwent socioeconomic...