Potosi: The Silver City That Changed the World

Kris Lane

Published by University of California Press 2019

Potosi

The Silver City That Changed the World

Kris Lane

Volume 27 in the series California World History Library

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520973633

Overview
Contents

About this book

"For anyone who wants to learn about the rise and decline of Potosí as a city . . . Lane's book is the ideal place to begin."—New York Review of Books

In 1545, a native Andean prospector hit pay dirt on a desolate red mountain in highland Bolivia. There followed the world’s greatest silver bonanza, making the Cerro Rico, or “Rich Hill,” and the Imperial Villa of Potosí instant legends, famous from Istanbul to Beijing. The Cerro Rico alone provided over half of the world’s silver for a century, and even in decline, it remained the single richest source on Earth.

Potosí is the first interpretive history of the fabled mining city’s rise and fall. From Potosí’s startling emergence in the sixteenth century to its collapse in the nineteenth, Kris Lane tells the story of global economic transformation and the environmental and social impact of rampant colonial exploitation. Lane’s invigorating narrative offers rare details of this thriving city and its promise of prosperity. A new world—native workers, market women, African slaves, and other ordinary residents living alongside elite merchants, refinery owners, wealthy widows, and crown officials—emerges in lively, riveting stories from the original sources. An engrossing depiction of excess and devastation, Potosí reveals the relentless human tradition in boom times and bust.

Author / Editor information

Lane Kris :

Kris Lane holds the France V. Scholes Chair in Colonial Latin American History at Tulane University. He is author of Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires, Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition, and Pillaging the Empire: Global Piracy on the High Seas, 1500–1750.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Illustrations and maps Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Timeline Publicly Available Download PDF	xvii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
1. Bonanza Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
2. Age of Wind, Age of Iron Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	46
3. The Viceroy’s Great Machine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
4. An Improbable Global City Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	92
5. Secret Judgments of God Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	117
6. Decadence and Rebirth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
7. From Revival to Revolution Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
8. Summing Up Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	181
Epilogue: Potosí since Independence Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
Appendix: Voices Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
Glossary Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
Bibliographical Essay Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
Select Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	243

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 272

eBook

Published: May 28, 2019
ISBN: 9780520973633