The great mining city of Potosí, in the highlands of what is today southern Bolivia, was the foremost source of silver in the early modern world, the crown jewel of the Spanish Empire in its heyday, and one of the world’s most populous urban settings in the late sixteenth to early seventeenth centuries. One traveler called it “The Eighth Wonder of the World.” It was renowned for its fabulous wealth and panoply, as well as the misery of its forced laborers; its astonishing jumble of Andean, European, and African peoples; its moral laxity; and its rough-and-tumble underside. Despite its spectacular importance, which has spurred rich scholarship, the “rich mountain” is not well known outside the Andean region; no volume in any language has offered a panoramic vision of its history. A book was waiting to be written, and finally it comes to us in Lane’s admirable and engrossing account.
Lane’s...