Robert M. Levine

Kris Lane

Kris E Lane

Between 1500 and 1750, European expansion and global interaction produced vast wealth. As goods traveled by ship along new global trade routes, piracy also flourished on the world’s seas. Pillaging the Empire tells the fascinating story of maritime predation in this period, including the perspectives of both pirates and their victims. Brushing aside the romantic legends of piracy, Kris Lane pays careful attention to the varied circumstances and motives that led to the rise of this bloodthirsty pursuit of riches, and places the history of piracy in the context of early modern empire building. This second edition of Pillaging the Empire has been revised and expanded to incorporate the latest scholarship on piracy, maritime law, and early modern state formation. With a new chapter on piracy in East and Southeast Asia, Lane considers piracy as a global phenomenon. Filled with colorful details and stories of individual pirates from Francis Drake to the women pirates Ann Bonny and Mary Read, this engaging narrative will be of interest to all those studying the history of Latin America, the Atlantic world, and the global empires of the early modern era.

Global Piracy on the High Seas, 1500-1750

Pillaging the Empire

Marc Van De Mieroop

Bonnie G. Smith

Richard von Glahn

A Global History

World in the Making

"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 16th century to its collapse in the 19th. Throughout, Kris Lane’s invigorating narrative offers rare details of this thriving city and its promise of prosperity. A new world of native workers, market women, African slaves, and other ordinary residents who lived alongside the elite merchants, refinery owners, wealthy widows, and crown officials, emerge in lively, riveting stories from the original sources. An engrossing depiction of excess and devastation, Potosí reveals the relentless human tradition in boom times and bust.

The Silver City That Changed the World

Potosi

Kris E. Lane

In this new and original study of piracy, Kris Lane looks at the often mixed motives behind the phenomenon and the lives of those involved. Rejecting the romantic myth of the Elizabethan swashbuckler, he reveals a world of violence, hardship and fanaticism, in which self-enrichment was an obsession. From the first corsairs of the 16th century to the last of the buccaneers, he traces the rise and fall of a dangerous profession which encompassed slave-running, smuggling and ship-wrecking.

A History of Piracy in the Caribbean and Central America

Blood and Silver

Two-volume primary source reader for use in conjuction with: Crossroads and cultures / Bonnie G. Smith ... [et al.].

A History of the World's Peoples

Sources of Crossroads and Cultures, Volume I: To 1450

Marc Van de Mieroop

Richard Von Glahn

"There are many ways to tell a story. Textbooks offer narratives, crafted by an historian or a team of historians. Collections of primary sources present a mosaic of stories, often interspersed with pictures of artwork and other physical objects drawn from the past. Mapping the World takes advantage of the strength of maps to tell a different sort of story. The maps are divided into two groups: a) Reference maps that provide a brief outline of key events and developments in global history; b) blank outline maps and accompanying exercises that offer opportunities to explore the past in a hands-on fashion."--Provided by publisher.

A Mapping and Coloring Book of World History

Mapping the World

Matthew Restall

This second edition is a concise history of Latin America from the Aztecs and Incas to Independence.

Latin America in Colonial Times

Tapping a wide range of sources, Kris Lane traces the complex web of global trading networks that funneled emeralds from backland South America to populous Asian capitals between the 16th and the 18th centuries.

The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires

Colour of Paradise

"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 world of native workers, market women, African slaves, and other ordinary residents who lived alongside the elite merchants, refinery owners, wealthy widows, and crown officials, emerge in lively, riveting stories from the original sources. An engrossing depiction of excess and devastation, Potosí reveals the relentless human tradition in boom times and bust.

Kris Lane

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