Cristina Ewig, Second-Wave Neoliberalism: Gender, Race and Health Sector Reform in Peru (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2010), pp. xiv+255, $67.95, hb.
heritage’, which had little to do with the real participation of the indigenous peoples in the economy, with their actual political participation as ‘Indians’ in the making of the Peruvian state, or with the cultural apportionments (food, music, communal organisation, and so on). In Drinot’s analysis, the ‘Indian’ remains as a generic personage to whom others referred, not a differentiated, acting group of people. I found myself wondering whether in all the documentation Drinot reviewed there were any ‘Indians’ mentioned beyond derogatory references. There was a large indigenous, salaried labour force in Peru’s mines. Did they have any access to what the Peruvian state was willing to offer? What was the level of discussion concerning labour and labour demands between the Peruvian state and foreign capital, particularly in mining activities? How did workers’ salaries compare, say, between Indian mine workers in Cerro de Pasco and textile workers on the coast? Or maybe it would be worth asking ourselves how much the ‘labor state’ actually knew about labour and labour conditions. If most projects failed miserably (or at least did not benefit the targeted social group), can it be assumed that the state’s knowledge before creating the workers’ districts or establishing the eateries or the Seguro Social was close to nil? Or that it did not really care, in spite of its rhetoric and civilising anxieties? Maybe all these questions could be summarised in one critique of the book, namely the absence of a definition of who the ‘workers’ actually were. Aside from being ‘statedefined dependent manual labor in given locations’, we learn very little about who they were, what they did, or even how they reacted to the labour state’s intentions and actions. I almost feel there is a second part of the book missing, but maybe Drinot has a second volume in mind, in which the words ‘race’ and ‘workers’ in his title get fullfledged attention. Peru’s working class was relatively small, but, for instance, would evidence from  families be representative of the workers’ housing conditions in  (p. )? As a brief side note, ‘The Making of the Peruvian State’ has become such an overarching concept/title that it is beginning to lose its historical meaning. It seems that now we can use the concept to describe any time period we choose. It is, for sure, an ongoing process; however, each ‘making of a state’ encompasses very distinct phases but is not the making of the state. Drinot’s would be the ‘phase of the labour state’, other authors’ would be the ‘phase of the independent state’, or the ‘phase of the warrior state’ ... the ‘making of the state’ should not look only at labour relations, or a war scenario, or a guerrilla movement, and, most certainly, it should not be a topdown reading of the historical record. Where has this cherished ‘everyday state formation’ idea gone? Overall, Paulo Drinot’s book is a fine contribution on a period of Peruvian history that we still know too little about; it is also a nice read, although it could be an even better read if the reiterations had been fewer.