Skip to main content
Presented to you through Paradigm Publishing Services

University of California Press

Visit our Partner Page See all our books
book: Potosi
Book
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Potosi

The Silver City That Changed the World
Language: English
Published/Copyright: 2019

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.

Author / Editor information

Contributor: Kris Lane Kris Lane holds the France V. Scholes Chair in Colonial Latin American History at Tulane University. He is author of Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires, Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition, and Pillaging the Empire: Global Piracy on the High Seas, 1500–1750.
 

Topics

  • Publicly Available

    Frontmatter

    i
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Contents

    vii
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Illustrations and maps

    ix
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Acknowledgments

    xi
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Preface

    xiii
    Download PDF
  • Publicly Available

    Timeline

    xvii
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Introduction

    1
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    1. Bonanza

    20
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    2. Age of Wind, Age of Iron

    46
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    3. The Viceroy’s Great Machine

    67
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    4. An Improbable Global City

    92
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    5. Secret Judgments of God

    117
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    6. Decadence and Rebirth

    137
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    7. From Revival to Revolution

    158
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    8. Summing Up

    181
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Epilogue: Potosí since Independence

    186
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Appendix: Voices

    197
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Glossary

    203
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Notes

    205
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Bibliographical Essay

    229
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Select Bibliography

    233
    Download PDF
  • Requires Authentication Unlicensed
    Licensed

    Index

    243
    Download PDF

Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
August 5, 2019
eBook ISBN:
9780520973633
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
272
View content
https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520973633
eBook ISBN: 9780520973633
Keywords for this book
rise and decline of potosi; history of fabled mining city; worlds greatest silver bonanza; provided half of worlds silver; single richest source on earth; global economic transformation; 16th century to 19th century; excess and devastation; human traditions in boom times and bust; market women; elite merchants; refinery owners; crown officials; wealthy widows; african slaves; native workers
Downloaded on 29.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1525/9780520973633/html?lang=en
Scroll to top button