This fine collection of essays demonstrates the quality of historical research currently being produced in many of Mexico’s regional universities. The work provides a thorough introduction to the social and cultural history of colonial Michoacán, ably summarizing and at points moving beyond previous scholarship. The volume evaluates and refines many issues, such as cycles of epidemic and demographic decline, the influence of new market forces and the blending of indigenous and Spanish technologies and forms of labor organization, and agrarian violence and rural revolt. Welcome additions include discussions of cultural history—especially focused on religious institutions at elite and popular levels—and a distinct pattern of sixteenth-century church architecture in Michoacán.
The volume, edited and introduced by Carlos Paredes Martínez, consists of ten essays divided into three sections: population and economics; agrarian conflicts and politics; and art and society. The first two essays, by Sergio Navarrete Pellicer, discuss sixteenth-century Tarascan population demography...
