This book offers the first comprehensive examination of the work of Bolivian political thinker Rene Zavaleta (1939 84), whose ideas were a key influence on many of the indigenous activists and ideologues who have transformed Bolivian politics and economics in recent years. Luis Tapia, a political analyst who has worked closely with many of the central figures in today's Bolivian government, presents a detailed panorama of Bolivian history that sets Zavaleta's analyses in context and helps readers and activists alike understand the history and ideological currents that underpinned the rise of the neo-indigenous movement in the twenty-first century. "Tapia is the greatest scholar of the work of his countryman." Jaime Ortega Reyna, SciELO Mexico