"Given the importance of the book's subject, the author's knowledge of much local detail and a helpful documentary appendix, specialists on the history of late colonial mining and politics in the Andes will find this work useful..." Journal of Interdisciplinary History

• Preface; 1. Oruro between two epochs: a mining cycle; 2. Under Spanish law; 3. Oruro in 1741: details of a stormy election; 4. The people; 5. Madmen, comedians, and hypocrites; 6. Captains of shipwreck; 7. Returning to the known; 8. 'The fruits of the earth'; 9. The end of an epoch: the indigenous uprisings of 1780–1781; 10. Oruro in the economic and geopolitical context of the epoch (circa 1780–1781); 11. The Oruro uprising; 12. The voice of the rebels; 13. Picking up the pieces; Appendix; Notes; Bibliography