Description
Book SynopsisWinner, Premio Flora Tristán Al Mejor Libro, Peru Section, Latin American Studies Association, 2019
After the Spanish victories over the Inca claimed Tawantinsuyu for Charles V in the 1530s, native Andeans undertook a series of perilous trips from Peru to the royal court in Spain. Ranging from an indigenous commoner entrusted with delivering birds of prey for courtly entertainment to an Inca prince who spent his days amid titles, pensions, and other royal favors, these sojourners were both exceptional and paradigmatic. Together, they shared a conviction that the sovereign’s absolute authority would guarantee that justice would be done and service would receive its due reward. As they negotiated their claims with imperial officials, Amerindian peoples helped forge the connections that sustained the expanding Habsburg realm’s imaginary and gave the modern global age its defining character.
Andean Cosmopolitans recovers these travelers&rsquo
Trade Review
José Carlos de la Puente Luna achieves a triumph of research, analysis, and prose…Experts will marvel at its simultaneously local and global scope and its profound new perspectives on the viceregal period. * Hispanic American Historical Review *
The research presented here…is immensely solid and coherent, reflecting the most recent works within the area of global history aimed at uncovering the mutual innterrelations and influences among different areas of the globe…a vibrant and dynamic narration...Andean Cosmopolitans presents all the necessary ingredients for becoming an indispensable reference work for a vision of colonial America based on the criteria of global history. * Sixteenth Century Journal *
The remarkable strengths of de la Puente Luna's book: constant attention to the indigenous as that which is constructed in discourse and through discourse, and thus is indicative of subjection, limited by the law, yet transformative of it, in the charged contexts of local and imperial representation. * Renaissance Quarterly *
De La Puente has shown himself a virtuoso researcher in many archives, and at the same time a powerful renovator of New World history in the wide frame. He changes our view of the seventeenth century by clarifying how the institutions called Andean community took shape—and also by proving that community is not the whole Andean story. Everyone concerned with creating a truly ‘forward-facing’ history of the New World peoples will want to read Andean Cosmopolitans. * Ethnohistory *
[An] important monograph...Anyone wanting to understand the centrality of the legal system for shifting social and power constellations in the colonial Andes needs to read this impressive work of scholarship. * Journal of Latin American Studies *
Andean Cosmopolitans is a nuanced and comprehensive study...What makes the book so exciting is its unusual historiographical combination. De la Puente Luna brings together two historiographies, each with their own traditions, methods, and paradigms: ethnohistory and Atlantic history...This beautifully documented study is also a deep exploration of the meaning of indigeneity in the Spanish Empire. The indigenous world reconstructed here is unpredictable, in flux, and fascinating. * H-Net Reviews, Latin America *
This much anticipated book is a thorough analysis of the Amerindian travelers and their respective networks...La Puente recovers these indigenous travelers’ social experiences and then inserts them into the making of the Spanish Atlantic. * Colonial Latin American Review *
Table of Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Don Melchor Is Dead
- 2. Khipus, Community, and the Pursuit of Justice in Sixteenth-Century Peru
- 3. The Expanding Web: Indigenous Claimants Join the Early Modern Atlantic
- 4. Who Speaks for the Indians? Lima, Castile, and the Rise of the Nación Índica
- 5. At His Majesty’s Expense: Imperial Quandaries and Indigenous Visitors at Court
- 6. What’s in a Name? Impostors, Forgeries, and the Limits of Transatlantic Advocacy
- 7. The Great Inca Don Luis I
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
