ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the literature produced over roughly the last twenty years, with an occasional glance back in time to acknowledge an already existing fertile field of inquiry or a notable earlier work. It considers in turn the Iberian, Indian, and black spheres of the colonial world—and the dynamics of their overlap. The chapter describes urban social history, prosopography, agrarian structures, the family, women’s history, and the phenomenon of race mixture. It focuses on Indians addresses central Mexico, the Yucatan, and the Andes, before considering the experiences of Indians who were not fully sedentary—that is, who were not agriculturalists living in permanent, unshifting settlements. The chapter looks at the black experience in colonial Latin America, pointing out the continued vitality of the comparative approach plus the variety of detailed monographs that have appeared.
