Potosi av Kris Lane

339,-

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"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."¿The 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. It tells the story of global economic transformation and the environmental and social impact of rampant colonial exploitation from Potosí¿s startling emergence in the sixteenth century to its collapse in the nineteenth. Throughout, Kris Lane¿s invigorating narrative offers rare details of this thriving city and its promise of prosperity. A new