The impact of increased scholarly study on Latin America is dramatic to any senior reader who examines Colonial Latin America. Compression has reduced topics dear to older texts to a few pages. Such is the treatment of aboriginal cultures, the Iberian past, discovery, exploration, and conquest. Even the description of colonial and church structures occupies only 26 pages and the Wars of Independence, 34. Instead, one finds topics such as “Columbian Exchange”; population and labor; production, exchange, and defense; and living in the empire. Although these topics perhaps were given scant treatment previously, they are here dealt with in a richness that only recent scholarly exploration makes possible. The sections on race and race mixture, for example, contain much that would have figured in a text some generations ago, but the topics of social adjustments, passing, gracias al sacar, and Indian immigration and escape from towns of origin either are new or receive new emphasis. Even the chapter on imperial expansion and Bourbon and Pombaline reforms incorporates much recent research.
Inevitably in a text covering much territory and time, the authors describe in a series of generalizations, holding judiciously to the middle road, particularly when perplexed by scholarly dispute or indecision. Occasionally, this approach leads them into what one might call giving the Devil too much due, as in “As a result, bureaucrats and even high churchmen commonly considered themselves materially deprived and undercompensated, which led many to enrich themselves through the abuse of institutional power” (p. 163). This is to misunderstand vastly different attitudes about the perquisites and duties of office. I might also suggest that comparisons would gain greater clarity if brought to like forms of measure.
I congratulate the authors on a highly readable text, derived from the latest research, thoughtfully illustrated, and provided with lists of pertinent monographs for further reading. The Oxford University Press has done its part through a clean, attractive format, and a good index.
