Why read Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages?

Book cover of Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages

Book description

This study analyzes the impact of Spanish rule on Indian peasant identity in the late colonial period by investigating three areas of social behavior. Based on the criminal trial records and related documents from the regions of central Mexico and Oaxaca, it attempts to discover how peasants conceived of their…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Drinking, Homicide and Rebellion in Colonial Mexican Villages as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

David Carey Jr.

Author

Revealing a relationship between alcohol, violent crime and rebellion, this book pioneered historical studies of alcohol.

I love the way Taylor uses alcohol as a lens through which to think about the past. Examining the social meanings of alcohol, he demonstrates how the beverages one drank helped to determine their identity. Indigenous consumers who turned to alcohol to temporarily escape their plight and privations also played upon colonial Spaniards’ assumptions about their penchant for alcoholism to subvert colonial rule.

Among the first to study governments’ contradictory goals of controlling inebriation and profiting from the alcohol economy, Taylor reveals the complex…

From David's list on alcohol in Latin America and the Caribbean.