Part of The Blackwell History of the World Series
The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.
PETER BAKEWELL is Edmund and Louise Kahn Professor of History at Southern Methodist University and has taught in the US since 1975. His major research and writing has centered on the history of silver mining and related topics in colonial Spanish America. His previous works include Silver Mining and Society in Colonial Mexico: Zacatecas, 1546–1700 (1971) and Silver and Entrepreneurship in Seventeenth-Century Potosi: The Life and Times of Antonio López de Quiroga (1988).
JACQUELINE HOLLER is Associate Professor of History and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, Canada. She is the author of Escogidas Plantas: Nuns and Beatas in Mexico City, 1531–1601 (2003), and of articles on colonial Mexico.