Potosí : the silver city that changed the world
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Bibliographic Information
Potosí : the silver city that changed the world
（The California world history library, 27）
University of California Press, c2019
- : cloth
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Note
"Simpson imprint in humanities"--Added t.p
"A Simpson book in humanities"--Jacket
Includes bibliographical references (p. 233-242) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
"For anyone who wants to learn about the rise and decline of Potosi as a city . . . Lane's book is the ideal place to begin."-New York Review of BooksIn 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 Potosi 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.
Potosi is the first interpretive history of the fabled mining city's rise and fall. From Potosi'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, Potosi reveals the relentless human tradition in boom times and bust.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Preface
Timeline
Introduction
1 * Bonanza
2 * Age of Wind, Age of Iron
3 * The Viceroy's Great Machine
4 * An Improbable Global City
5 * Secret Judgments of God
6 * Decadence and Rebirth
7 * From Revival to Revolution
8 * Summing Up
Epilogue: Potosi since Independence
Appendix: Voices
Glossary
Notes
Bibliographical Essay
Select Bibliography
Index
by "Nielsen BookData"
