Synopsis
Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History is a sourcebook of primary texts and images intended for students and teachers as well as for scholars and general readers. The book centers upon people-people from different parts of the world who came together to form societies by chance and by design in the years after 1492. This text is designed to encourage a detailed exploration of the cultural development of colonial Latin America through a wide variety of documents and visual materials, most of which have been translated and presented originally for this collection. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History is a revision of SR Books popular Colonial Spanish America. The new edition welcomes a third co-editor and, most significantly, embraces Portuguese and Brazilian materials. Other fundamental changes include new documents from Spanish South America, the addition of some key color images, plus six reference maps, and a decision to concentrate entirely upon primary sources. The book is meant to enrich, not repeat, the work of existing texts on this period, and its use of primary sources to focus upon people makes it stand out from other books that have concentrated on the political and economic aspects. The books illustrations and documents are accompanied by introductions which provide context and invite discussion. These sources feature social changes, puzzling developments, and the experience of living in Spanish and Portuguese American colonial societies. Religion and society are the integral themes of Colonial Latin America. Religion becomes the nexus for much of what has been treated as political, social, economic, and cultural history during this period. Society is just as inclusive, allowing students to meet a variety of individuals-not faceless social groups. While some familiar names and voices are included-conquerors, chroniclers, sculptors, and preachers-other, far less familiar points of view complement and complicate the better-known narratives of this history. In treating Iberia and America, before as well as after their meeting, apparent contradictions emerge as opportunities for understanding; different perspectives become prompts for wider discussion. Other themes include exploration and contact; religious and cultural change; slavery and society, miscegenation, and the formation, consolidation, reform, and collapse of colonial institutions of government and the Church, as well as accompanying changes in economies and labor. This sourcebook allows students and teachers to consider the thoughts and actions of a wide range of people who were making choices and decisions, pursuing ideals, misperceiving each other, experiencing disenchantment, absorbing new pressures, breaking rules as well as following them, and employing strategies of survival which might involve both reconciliation and opposition. Colonial Latin America: A Documentary History has been assembled with teaching and class discussion in mind. The book will be an excellent tool for Latin American history survey courses and for seminars on the colonial period.
Review
A unique and eclectic collection of archival 'vignettes' that students would not normally have any exposure. Although they focus on individual experiences and situations, these vignettes have great teaching value for the larger themes of colonial Latin American history. They bring history alive in ways that textbooks cannot. Probably most important, they allow me to illustrate larger lecture points in a way that is not only clear but memorable to students.--Paula DeVos, San Diego State University
I have the highest regard for this as an invaluable text.--John Russell-Wood, Johns Hopkins University
An invaluable resource for teachers of colonial Latin American history. The documents are well-chosen, judiciously translated, and beautifully introduced. They bring forth the key themes of faith, honor, patronage, and mestizaje in vivid, unforgettable strokes. And like all vital historical documents, they are challenging and open to multiple interpretations, offering fertile ground for classroom discussion.--Bryan McCann, Georgetown University
This is the most challenging, useful and thoughtful collection of primary sources available for the study of Colonial Latin America.--Nicole von Germeten, Oregon State University
I've taught the colonial Latin American survey for the last nine years, and the only source reader I really like is Mills, Taylor, & Graham. I keep coming back to it because it is thorough, well-selected, and of the highest scholarly caliber. The documents are all relevant to my approach to the survey, and I use virtually all of them in the course of each semester. Since many have a religious or ethnohistorical focus, they nicely complement the more political economy/secular society thrust of most textbooks. The use of art historical approaches to understanding colonial (and pre-colonial) thought and vision is the icing on the cake--not just pictures, but 'visual texts.'--Kris Lane, College of William & Mary
Adding this book to syllabi which treat what is usually referred to as the 'colonial period' will undoubtedly enrich the experience and expand the understanding of undergraduates studying Latin America.--Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies
A much-needed and innovative selection of texts and images. . . . Suited for classroom use, this work blends primary and secondary sources dealing with gender, class, race, ethnicity, and institutional development in early Latin America. This volume is recommended to students and aficionados of Spanish colonial history in the Americas.--Colonial Latin American Historical Review
Emphasizing the confluence of the many, varied peoples that formed societies in colonial Latin America by chance and by design in the years following 1492, this text examines the region's cultural development based on readings, documents, historical analysis, photographs, drawings, and paintings.--Book News, Inc.
This text constitutes the most diverse and illuminating set yet assembled on colonial Spanish America. The editors have succeeded brilliantly in combining highly useful original sources intended for the serious undergraduate with a scholarly apparatus and commentary of the highest order.--Rocky Mountain Review
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