González Prada was one of the most influential Peruvian thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This anthology collects his most combative essays, which tackle various subjects from philosophy and religion to politics and aesthetics. His prose shows modernist influences and demonstrates a transition in the Spanish language. In Discurso del Politeama he displays his tireless activism, echoing the cry: "The old at the tomb; youth to work!" which became the motto of his generation. González Prada has been criticized for forcing his political opinions into his work., but that is perhaps the most essential part of his thinking. For him "the political truth is not unlike the moral truth, because if the policy is not a moral action, (then) it is the art of deceiving and exploiting men."