Potosi
eBook - ePub

Potosi

The Silver City That Changed the World

  1. 272 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Potosi

The Silver City That Changed the World

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.

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Yes, you can access Potosi by Kris Lane in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Latin American & Caribbean History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Series Page
  2. Imprint
  3. Subvention
  4. Frontispiece
  5. Title
  6. Copyright
  7. Dedication
  8. Epigraph
  9. List of Illustrations
  10. Acknowledgments
  11. Preface
  12. Timeline
  13. Introduction
  14. 1 • Bonanza
  15. 2 • Age of Wind, Age of Iron
  16. 3 • The Viceroy’s Great Machine
  17. 4 • An Improbable Global City
  18. 5 • Secret Judgments of God
  19. 6 • Decadence and Rebirth
  20. 7 • From Revival to Revolution
  21. 8 • Summing Up
  22. Epilogue: Potosí since Independence
  23. Appendix: Voices
  24. Glossary
  25. Notes
  26. Bibliographical Essay
  27. Select Bibliography
  28. Index