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In Colonial Habits Kathryn Burns transforms our view of nuns as marginal recluses, making them central actors on the colonial stage. Beginning with the 1558 founding of South America's first convent, Burns shows that nuns in Cuzco played a vital part in subjugating Incas, creating a creole elite, & ...

In Colonial Habits Kathryn Burns transforms our view of nuns as marginal recluses, making them central actors on the colonial stage. Beginning with the 1558 founding of South America's first convent, Burns shows that nuns in Cuzco played a vital part in subjugating Incas, creating a creole elite, & reproducing an Andean colonial order in which economic & spiritual interests were inextricably fused. Based on unprecedented archival research, Colonial Habits demonstrates how nuns became leading guarantors of their city's social order by making loans, managing property, containing "unruly" women, & raising girls. Coining the phrase "spiritual economy" to analyze the intricate investments & relationships that enabled Cuzco's convents & their backers to thrive, Burns explains how, by the late 1700s, this economy had faltered badly, making convents an emblem of decay & a focal point for intense criticism of a failing colonial regime. By the nineteenth century, the nuns had retreated from their previous roles, marginalized in the construction of a new republican order. Providing insight that can be extended well outside the Andes to the relationships articulated by convents across much of Europe, the Americas, & beyond, Colonial Habits will engage those interested in early modern economics, Latin American studies, women in religion, & the history of gender, class, & race.

By considering Bourbon Peru in a chronological framework which begins at mid-century rather than 1700, this book focuses the reader’s attention on the key issue of the relationship between colonial reform in the late eighteenth century and the creation of an independent Peruvian state in the ...

By considering Bourbon Peru in a chronological framework which begins at mid-century rather than 1700, this book focuses the reader’s attention on the key issue of the relationship between colonial reform in the late eighteenth century and the creation of an independent Peruvian state in the 1820s. Fisher sets out some uncluttered responses to this question, emphasizing continuities between the two forms of regime rather than change. The author’s arguments are underpinned by a comprehensive review of the major elements of Peru’s economic, social and political development for the half century from 1750. The study concludes with a detailed analysis of the independence period (1810–1824) which unlike many previous studies, provides a detailed interpretation of unrest in the highlands of royalist Peru, the dying days of the viceroyalty under Jose de la Serna (1821–1824) in Cusco, and the attempts to reach a negotiated settlement with the patriots under Jose de San Martin. Bourbon Peru is accessible, readable and well argued, and it will be essential reading for anyone with questions about the economy, government, social structure and political outlooks of Peru in the period prior to its independence.