The years 1909-1930, the eleven-year presidency of the businessman-turned-politician Augusto B. Leguia, mark a formative period of Peruvian modernity, witnessing the continuity of a process of reconstruction and the development of an intellectual and cultural tradition after a humbling defeat during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). But these years were also fraught with conflict generated by long-standing divisions and new rivalries. A postwar generation of intellectuals and artists, led by Jose Carlos Mariategui and galvanized by left-wing thinking and an avant-garde aesthetic, sought...