Volume I is a compendium of data from the former Reino de Guatemala prior to independence from Spain. Documentation from archives in Seville, Madrid & Central America. Markman provides a derrotero, a navigational chart, with "sailing instructions" to the scholar searching for elusive information. Text includes data difficult to access. Observance of "America 500." Bibliography & index. In English & Spanish. "This is without a doubt a true work of art. It is crafted to perfection, almost as precisely as if executed with the same rule & compass as were used to draw the plans of the Spanish towns. The information encourages Central American research." - Francisco de Solano, Centro de Estudios Historicos, Madrid. "I consider Professor Markman's new work of the utmost importance for all the scholars of the history of art in Latin America...This work will join those of Hanke, Whitaker, & Bolton." - Jose Antonio Calderon Quijano, Escuela de Estudios Hispano- Americanos, Sevilla. "This is a very important research work...one of the more valuable...contributions to the Quincentenial." - Antonio Bonet Correa, Ciudad Universitaria, Madrid. The second of a two-volume work on the topic provides a helpful index to the scholar searching for elusive information on architecture & urbanization of colonial Central America. In many instances, Markman's illustrations provide the only visual evidence extant of colonial buildings & townscapes in Reino de Guatemala. ISBN 0- 87918-080-3. Order from Arizona State University-Center for Latin American Studies, Box 872401, Tempe, AZ 85287-2401; 602-965-5127.

The first century of Spanish colonization in Latin America witnessed the birth of cities that, while secondary to great metropolitan centers such as Mexico City and Lima, became important hubs for regional commerce. Santiago de Guatemala, the colonial capital of Central America, was one of these. A multiethnic and multicultural city from its beginning, Santiago grew into a vigorous trading center for agrarian goods such as cacao and cattle hides. With the wealth this commerce generated, Spaniards, natives, and African slaves built a city that any European of the period would have found familiar. This book provides a more complete picture of society, culture, and economy in sixteenth-century Santiago de Guatemala than has ever before been drawn. Robinson Herrera uses previously unstudied primary sources, including testaments, promissory notes, and work contracts, to recreate the lives and economic activities of the non-elite sectors of society, including natives, African slaves, economically marginal Europeans, and people of mixed descent. His focus on these groups sheds light on the functioning of the economy at the lower levels and reveals how people of different ethnic groups formed alliances to create a vibrant local and regional economy based on credit. This portrait of Santiago also increases our understanding of how secondary Spanish American cities contributed vitally to the growth of the colonies.