A few months ago, I visited Dr. Melissa Guy, the Benson Librarian. I wanted to chat with her about my vision of the Benson’s Centennial (see my letter published in NEP). After listening to me, Dr. Guy recommended I read A Library for the Americas: The Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection (University of Texas Press, 2018). There were a few things I might learn from reading the book, she said.

It is difficult to envision the sheer quantity of pearls dredged up from the New World by sixteenth-century colonists. An average of a 1,000 pounds of pearl per year in tax revenue alone. The social, political, and ecological challenges of producing such richness is the subject of a fascinating book by historian Molly Warsh reviewed here.   

After the conquest, Tenochtitlan became Mexico, but the city remained predominantly indigenous. As a viceregal capital and global commercial hub, Mexico City underwent profound changes as ethnic newcomers from Oaxaca to Manila elbowed out the Nahua from their barrios, and Aztec systems of water management survived even as dikes and canals were modified.

Offering a provocative critique of the unspoken liberal underpinning of historiography on slavery, Herman Bennett's new study is addressed to Europeanists who have ignored the centrality of slavery to early modern political theory.