Trading Roles

“A fascinating and detailed case study based on important and original research. . . . Trading Roles makes a significant and thoughtful contribution to our understanding of specific networks of exchange, credit, and interaction in colonial Peru.” - Caroline Dodds, Sixteenth Century Journal

“[Mangan’s] narrative style and scholarship clearly will set a high standard for years to come.” - Michael D. Gambone, American Historical Review

“A comprehensive history worthy of the place is still to be written. But when the city’s Braudel finally appears, he or she will find a way into the lives of the mass of potosinos clearly opened by Dr. Mangan’s work.” - Peter Bakewell, Journal of Social History

“In the historiography on colonial Potosí, Mangan’s work is distinctive for its concentration on the grassroots of daily market activities and mundane business dealings. . . . The great strength of Mangan’s book is that she brings to life the world of the common vendors, artisans, merchants, and suppliers that made a great colonial city work.”
- Timothy E. Anna, Colonial Latin American Historical Review

“Mangan is always in firm control of her abundant data, no small achievement in this kind of research. This is the best study we have of the lower to middling urban castes and classes. . . . Mangan significantly advances the field of Andean history.” - David Cahill, Ethnohistory

“Mangan makes a unique contribution by telling the local tale. . . . Mangan did the work and brings excitement to the narrative. The data is supported by attractive and effective maps, prints, and appendices. The writing is scholarly, agile, and even fun as Mangan follows the lives of Spanish, Criollo, Indigenous and African men and women in their economic pursuits.” - James J. Harrington, Canadian Journal of History

“Mangan’s look at non-elite participation in Potosí’s economy is a contribution to our understanding of adaptation and negotiation in the face of an expanding colonial economic system.” - Cynthia E. Milton, Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

“Mangan’s writing is skilful with keen turns of phrases as she evokes the sights and the smells of the Andean market. Firmly ethno-historical, Mangan’s book is accessible to undergraduate and graduate students alike, who can experience the complexity of southern Andean colonial society without the overwhelming barrage of specific terms, names, and cultural concepts.” - Rachel Sarah O'Toole, Itinerario

“This is a highly readable, well-argued study appropriate for courses on the urban economy as well as gender history. . . . It does offer an inclusive and fresh approach to understanding how women and men of all ethnic groups came to create a colonial world in Potosí.” - Karen B. Graubart, Hispanic American Historical Review

"[A] superb work of social and economic history and a major contribution to the field of colonial Latin America. . . . [W]onderful." - Jeremy Baskes, Business History Review

"Jane Mangan's book definitively locates Potosí's indigenous and chola market women at the cutting edge of the seventeenth-century global economy." - Brooke Larson, Journal of Latin American Studies

"Mangan's book . . . demonstrates postmodern sensibility without any postmodern silliness. . . . [It leaves] the reader with a memorable view of the indigenous people of Potosí wrestling their lives from the opportunities they found." - Camilla Townsend, Journal of Colonialism & Colonial History

"This book adds an interesting and necessary historical perspective to many previous works on women in Andean marketplaces." - Clare A. Sammells, Gastronomica

"This intriguing work will be of interest to advanced students and specialists in Latin American trade and commerce, banking and credit, urbanization, and gender and ethnic studies. Recommended." - V.H. Cummins, Choice

“Trading Roles is a pioneering study. The mass of research Jane E. Mangan has put into the work is truly amazing. She makes the lives of the vast majority of the population of Potosí come alive.” - Erick D. Langer, author of Economic Change and Rural Resistance in Southern Bolivia, 1880-1930

“Trading Roles is an unusually lively, detailed account of ‘the underdogs’ of a colonial Spanish American city. It draws attention not only to relatively invisible historical actors but to the rich texture of the deals and socially patterned expectations that brought them together.” - Kathryn Burns, author of Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru