This book covers the history of Peru as a way to understand the nature of its economy and the tenor of its challenges at this time of commemoration of the bicentennial of independence. With this purpose, it examines the way in which the economy was constituted at the time of the viceroyalty and how said organization conditioned the evolution that occurred in the two completed centuries of independent life. The economy of Peru today contains various elements that vividly recall its past history, such as the key role of mining exports, both for public and private finances, the centralism of fundamental decisions and the high degree of inequality between regions and among the population. With first-hand data and basic notions of political economy, the successive bonanzas of guano, sugar, cotton, fishmeal and copper, which paraded through these lands after independence, as well as the periods of depression, are reviewed here. and the attempts at reform that occurred at the beginning of republican life and in the second half of the 20th century. The patterns of continuity with which the author links the events experienced in the country over five hundred years help to clarify the problems of the economy of our days and, thus, to propose realistic formulas for overcoming them.