Potosi
The Silver City That Changed the World
Kris Lane
- 272 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
Potosi
The Silver City That Changed the World
Kris Lane
About This Book
"For anyone who wants to learn about the rise and decline of PotosĂ as a city... Lane's book is the ideal place to begin."â 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 PotosĂ 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.
PotosĂ is the first interpretive history of the fabled mining city's rise and fall. From PotosĂ'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 worldânative workers, market women, African slaves, and other ordinary residents living alongside elite merchants, refinery owners, wealthy widows, and crown officialsâemerges in lively, riveting stories from the original sources. An engrossing depiction of excess and devastation, PotosĂ reveals the relentless human tradition in boom times and bust.