Fred Spier's first book, Religious Regimes in Peru: Religion and state development in a long-term perspective and the effects in the Andean village of Zurite, traces religion and politics throughout the Peruvian past, viewed from a world-historical perspective. It was published in 1994 by Amsterdam University Press. For this study, Spier received a 1993 Praemium Erasmianum Study Prize.

Praise for Religious Regimes in Peru

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“An excellent conspectus”
Times Literary Supplement

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“Important, innovative, interdisciplinary study of religion and politics from Peru's earliest known history (8000 BC) to 1991"
Handbook of Latin American Studies

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"I see this work as one which is innovative, and likely to enjoy a broad cross-disciplinary appeal."
John R. Fisher, Professor of Peruvian History, University of Liverpool, United Kindom

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"A rare documentation of a long process of religious change and development within a given social context. The combination of historical narrative, the feeling for geographical location, and the sensitivity to sociological considerations epithomized in the shifting locus of political power, results in the unique portrayal of the religious life of a community. The theoretical considerations which inform this work are of salience and importance generally. I am most impressed by Dr. Spier's scholarship in dealing what, despite its location in one community, is a vast historical canvas."
Bryan R.Wilson, The Reader in Sociology, All Souls College, Oxford, United Kingdom

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"The product of a mature man and superior mind. He combines theoretical sophistication with carefully amassed information in a way all students of history try to do, and achieve only occasionally. Spier does so with real distinction. Such an approach erodes the barriers between sociology and history and makes his book a model for both disciplines."
William H. McNeill, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Chicago, United States

"Este libro de lectura siempre agradable, está fundado sobre una documentación original sacada de los archivos locales, del Cuzco (episcopal y departamental), de Lima (Archivo Nacional) y de Sevilla (A.G.I.) pero está constantemente vivificado por una manifiesta convivencia y simpatía con las realidades de Zurite y de su gente, lo cual no deja de dar a este trabajo un toque muy original. Es de notar también una excelente biografía (unos quinientos títulos) sobre los problemas de la historia religiosa andina, todo lo cual hace del trabajo de Spier, indudablemente, un clásico cuyo interés rebasa ampliamente el marco del mundo surandino.
Bernard Lavallé in Historia Latinoamerica en Europa.