Cochabamba, 1550-1900: Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia / Edition 1

by Brooke Larson

Overview

Winner of the 1990 Best Book Award from the New England Council on Latin American Studies

This study of Bolivia uses Cochabamba as a laboratory to examine the long-term transformation of native Andean society into a vibrant Quechua-Spanish-mestizo region of haciendas and smallholdings, towns and villages, peasant markets and migratory networks caught in the web of Spanish imperial politics and economics. Combining economic, social, and ethnohistory, Brooke Larson shows how the contradictions of class and colonialism eventually gave rise to new peasant, artisan, and laboring groups that challenged the evolving structures of colonial domination. Originally published in 1988, this expanded edition includes a new final chapter that explores the book's implications for understanding the formation of a distinctive peasant political culture in the Cochabamba valleys over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780822320883
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	03/18/1998
Edition description:	Expanded
Pages:	452
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.91(d)
Lexile:	1640L (what's this?)

About the Author

Brooke Larson is Professor of History and Director of Latin American Center, State University of New York, Stony Brook. She is the coeditor of Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes, also published by Duke University Press.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

List of Tables xi

Foreword / William Roseberry xiii

Preface to the Duke Edition xix

Acknowledgments xxiii

Abbreviations xxvii

Introduction 3

1. Along the Inca Frontier 13

2. The Emergence of a Market Economy 51

3. Declining State Power and the Struggle over Labor 92

4. Andean Village Society 133

5. Haciendas and the Rival Peasant Economy 171

6. The Landowning Class: Hard Times and Windfall Profits 210

7. The Spirit and Limits of Enterprise 242

8. The Ebb Tide of Colonial Rule 270

9. Colonial Legacies and Class Formation 295

10. Cochabamba: (Re)constructing a History 322

Appendix 391

Glossary 401

Archival Material 407

Index 413

Editorial Reviews

[Cochabamba] stands as an impressive and theoretically engaging study in historical anthropology and the political economy of colonialism.

Latin American Research Review - Mark T. Berger

This book makes it clear that the history of these valleys is unique, with its large forastero, cholo, and mestizo populations, who worked for the haciendas, supplied grain to the silver miners, and evolved into a commercially vibrant, bilingual people with a rich ethnic heritage.

Agriculture and Human Values

[A] magnificent work in social history. In terms of its historical scope, rich detail, and theoretical sophistication, [Larson’s] work represents a model for social historians.

The Americas - Erwin P. Grieshaber

In light of the important reflections on the book by Roseberry and the author herself, and the quality and relevance of Cochabamba, 1550–1990, the decision to reissue it is clearly a good one.” - Colonial Latin American Historical Review


“This book makes it clear that the history of these valleys is unique, with its large forastero, cholo, and mestizo populations, who worked for the haciendas, supplied grain to the silver miners, and evolved into a commercially vibrant, bilingual people with a rich ethnic heritage.” - Agriculture and Human Values


“[A] magnificent work in social history. In terms of its historical scope, rich detail, and theoretical sophistication, [Larson’s] work represents a model for social historians.” - Erwin P. Grieshaber, The Americas


“[Cochabamba] stands as an impressive and theoretically engaging study in historical anthropology and the political economy of colonialism.” - Mark T. Berger, Latin American Research Review


“In light of the important reflections on the book by Roseberry and the author herself, and the quality and relevance of Cochabamba, 1550–1990, the decision to reissue it is clearly a good one.” - Colonial Latin American Historical Review


"Larson’s work is a major study in the Latin American field . . . magnificent and original. . . . ‘Must’ reading for all agrarian and social historians of Latin America."—Steve J. Stern, University of Wisconsin


"[T]he work of a master historian, finding, analyzing, and interpreting archival sources with both discipline and insight."—William Roseberry, from the Foreword

From the Publisher

In light of the important reflections on the book by Roseberry and the author herself, and the quality and relevance of Cochabamba, 1550–1990, the decision to reissue it is clearly a good one.

Colonial Latin American Historical Review