| Shaky Colonialism: The 1746 Earthquake-Tsunami in Lima, Peru, and Its Long Aftermath Contributor(s): Walker, Charles F. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0822341727 ISBN-13: 9780822341727 Publisher: Duke University Press OUR PRICE: $97.80 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: May 2008 Annotation: "Charles F. Walker explores the fault lines of colonial society through a painstaking archival study of the controversies that followed the 1746 earthquake-tsunami that nearly wiped out Lima. The analysis of the city's reconstruction is masterful and multifaceted; it gives a vivid sense of popular and elite understandings of race, gender, religion, and urban space. The book is also an imaginative analysis of how the baroque composite monarchy that was the Spanish empire worked: the absolutist policies of the Enlightenment and the Bourbon Reforms consistently gave way to resistance and negotiation. "Shaky Colonialism" breaks new ground."--Jorge Canizares-Esguerra, author of "Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-1700" |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | Latin America - South America - Nature | Earthquakes & Volcanoes - Nature | Natural Disasters |
| Dewey: 985.250 |
| LCCN: 2007043971 |
| Series: John Hope Franklin Center Book |
| Physical Information: 280 pages |
| Themes: - Cultural Region - Latin America - Chronological Period - 18th Century |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Contemporary natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina are quickly followed by disagreements about whether and how communities should be rebuilt, whether political leaders represent the community's best interests, and whether the devastation could have been prevented. Shaky Colonialism demonstrates that many of the same issues animated the aftermath of disasters more than 250 years ago. On October 28, 1746, a massive earthquake ravaged Lima, a bustling city of 50,000, capital of the Peruvian Viceroyalty, and the heart of Spain's territories in South America. Half an hour later, a tsunami destroyed the nearby port of Callao. The earthquake-tsunami demolished churches and major buildings, damaged food and water supplies, and suspended normal social codes, throwing people of different social classes together and prompting widespread chaos. In Shaky Colonialism, Charles F. Walker examines reactions to the catastrophe, the Viceroy's plans to rebuild the city, and the opposition he encountered from the Church, the Spanish Crown, and Lima's multiracial population. Through his ambitious rebuilding plan, the Viceroy sought to assert the power of the colonial state over the Church, the upper classes, and other groups. Agreeing with most inhabitants of the fervently Catholic city that the earthquake-tsunami was a manifestation of God's wrath for Lima's decadent ways, he hoped to reign in the city's baroque excesses and to tame the city's notoriously independent women. To his great surprise, almost everyone objected to his plan, sparking widespread debate about political power and urbanism. Illuminating the shaky foundations of Spanish control in Lima, Walker describes the latent conflicts--about class, race, gender, religion, and the very definition of an ordered society--brought to the fore by the earthquake-tsunami of 1746. |