"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

Potosí, a mining center in what is now Bolivia, was the most productive source of silver in the Spanish American Empire between the mid-1500's and the late sev

In 1719, a deadly and highly contagious disease took hold of the Imperial Villa of Potosí, a silver mining metropolis in what is now Bolivia. Within a year, th