BOOK REVIEWS 153

Though Rebels of Highland Guatemala ends before the tragic decade of the
1980s, Carmack's study nonetheless offers essential insights that help put contem-
porary Guatemala in a larger and deeper historical context. By revealing the com-
plexity of social, economic, and political relations within Momostenango and show-
ing how struggles for power among Mayas themselves creates shifting hierarchies
and competing interests, he offers a powerful caution against the broad generaliza-
tions and essentializing stereotypes that too often shape political debates about
Maya peoples and diminish too much of the scholarship.

University ofArizona KEVIN GOSNER

Tucson, Arizona

La moneda indigena y sus usos en la Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI. By Jose Luis
de Rojas. (Mexico: CIESAS, 1998. Pp. 229. Notes. Bibliography. Index. No
price.)

Recently, many intriguing publications have appeared that tackle the complex
issues involved in culture contact, conquest, and colonialism. These studies range
across the globe, stretch through extensive time periods (most of them concentrat-
ing on events over the past 500 years), and explore a wide diversity of topics, from
religion to politics to economics. This particular study, by Jose Luis de Rojas, exam-
ines one very important aspect of these relatively unsettled situations: the mutual
monetary adaptations made by Spanish and indigenous peoples in sixteenth-century
New Spain.

Prior to the arrival of the Spaniards in the area of present-day central Mexico, the
well-known Aztecs (Mexica) and their neighbors traded in bustling marketplaces,
employing two main forms of money to facilitate exchanges: plain white cotton
cloths (quachtli) and cacao beans. These same items were also important in long-
distance trade, being carried by professional merchants to and from distant trading
centers. Cacao beans and cotton cloth, along with many other goods, were also paid
in tribute by city-states conquered by the Aztec empire. These two types of goods
clearly played a central role in the smooth operation of the multi-faceted and com-
plex pre-Columbian exchange systems. As Rojas emphasizes, they continued in use
under Spanish rule during early colonial times in New Spain and adjacent areas. A
primary objective of this book is to understand the functioning of these indigenous
money forms in the colonial context, a context in which the Spaniards also brought
their own type of money.

Rojas tackles a series of related questions in unraveling the place of cotton cloth
and cacao beans in the sixteenth-century colonial economy. Who used these objects
as money, and in payment for what? Were there fixed values relating to cacao beans
and cotton cloth? How were these goods produced, and were there controls over their
production? How did their use as money compare with their use as consumables?
And above all lies the question of why these objects persisted as money forms when
the conquering society introduced its own type of money. Answers to these questions
154 BOOK REVIEWS

rely on an uneven and incomplete documentary record, so it is not surprising that,

intriguing and important as the questions are, some answers are still elusive.

In addition to posing a series of thoughtful questions, Rojas provides a concep-

tual discussion of the nature of money, and background on the historical documents
that serve as the foundation for his descriptions and interpretations. He relies on an
admirable variety of primary documents, which makes his study the first to delve so
thoroughly into the nature of these monies.

Beyond introductory and concluding chapters, the book is divided into two main
sections, one on cotton cloth and the other on cacao beans. In both sections Rojas
augments his discussions with abundant quotes from pertinent documentary
sources, making this book especially useful as a reference work to be consulted time
and again for primary data.

The cotton cloth, Rojas finds, was used at times by Spaniards to pay natives, par-
ticularly for services (the Spaniards, in any event, having received such cloth in trib-
ute). Since the cloth's value was closely equivalent to that of the Spanish coin, the
two were often used interchangeably and the cloth-as-money was replaced by coin
fairly early in the colonial period. Cacao, being of a more diminutive value, was
used much more broadly for payments of services and goods, often by Spaniards to
natives as well as among natives themselves. Its use as money persisted much
longer than cloth's through the sixteenth century.

Both goods were useful commodities as well as money forms, and both exhib-
ited variable values depending on, especially, quality. The documentary record
offers little in the way of information on production organization and controls, a
topic that Rojas recognizes as highly significant, yet still only vaguely understood.
Jos6 Luis de Rojas has provided an extremely useful, thoroughly documented, and
systematic presentation of the place and persistence of indigenous money forms in
sixteenth-century New Spain and adjacent areas. His contribution is additionally
valuable in that it highlights remaining questions regarding the adaptations and
accommodations of economies in the early years of culture contact.

California State University FRANCES F. BERDAN

San Bernardino, California

Latin America and the World Economy Since 1800. Edited by John H. Coatsworth
and Alan M. Taylor. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. Pp. xiv, 484.
Illustrations. Bibliography. Index. $24.95.)

The modernization of Latin American economic history has begun, or so a group

of perhaps two dozen scholars would have you believe. This anthology, the pro-
ceedings of a conference held at Bellagio in 1998, gives an indication of where the
field is headed and what all the fuss is about. Most of the papers included are well
done and even the laggards are by no means bad. While I have heard it said that