Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a historian of gender in colonial Latin America. I'm always looking for surprises in these stories: men's and women's lives in the past were not narrower than ours, and I love to find their strategies for dealing with a system that was often stacked against them. I enjoy learning that my expectations were wrong, and thinking about the past as a living world. As a researcher who is always stumbling on unusual documents that I have to confront with fresh eyes, I really love a book that challenges me to think about how we can even know about the past, especially in terms of race and gender.


I wrote

With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550-1700

By Karen Graubart,

Book cover of With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550-1700

What is my book about?

The colonization of Peru disrupted the lives of millions. Indigenous women responded to the Spanish invasion and their voracious demands…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico

Karen Graubart Why did I love this book?

We don't know very much about Indigenous women's lives before and during the Spanish conquest. Camilla Townsend let me imagine how Malintzin, an enslaved Indigenous girl who was presented as a gift to the conquistador Hernando Cortés, experienced and made sense of that world.

I was transported to central Mexico and Yucatán through Townsend's careful but lively reading of art, poetry, and historical writings, her lush building of landscapes and lifeways created a space where I could place Malintzin and understand her choices. Those choices were complicated: she transformed herself from a slave into Cortés' most important interpreter and ally, translating Indigenous diplomats and leaders so that Cortés knew whom to trust, speaking back to them as his mouthpiece. I was convinced that Malintzin was both a brilliant strategist and also a woman with few options and not the outright villain or hero that a lot of the literature wishes her to be. And I also learned how so few Spaniards claimed control over a vast Indigenous empire, through alliances brokered by this young woman.

By Camilla Townsend,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Malintzin's Choices as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Malintzin was the indigenous woman who translated for Hernando Cortes in his dealings with the Aztec emperor Moctezuma in the days of 1519 to 1521. 'Malintzin', at least, was what the Indians called her. The Spanish called her dona Marina, and she has become known to posterity as La Malinche. As Malinche, she has long been regarded as a traitor to her people, a dangerously sexy, scheming woman who gave Cortes whatever he wanted out of her own self-interest. The life of the real woman, however, was much more complicated. She was sold into slavery as a child, and eventually…


Book cover of Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru

Karen Graubart Why did I love this book?

I've always wondered why Latin American colonial cities had so many convents, surely there were not enough nuns to populate them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries?

Kathryn Burns not only clears up this mystery but shows us that convents were more or less the banks of their era, taking in funds in the form of nuns' entrance fees and gifts and bequests and then investing and lending them out (at interest) to local notables, often relatives of the women inside.

Convents were not simply homes for religious women, but were places where young women were formed, Spaniards, Indigenous, and Black, for the sake of the new colonial society. I would not have thought I would find the history of convents a page-turner, but I loved the scandals, the race relations, and the unexpected economic history.

By Kathryn Burns,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Colonial Habits as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Colonial Habits Kathryn Burns transforms our view of nuns as marginal recluses, making them central actors on the colonial stage. Beginning with the 1558 founding of South America's first convent, Burns shows that nuns in Cuzco played a vital part in subjugating Incas, creating a creole elite, and reproducing an Andean colonial order in which economic and spiritual interests were inextricably fused.
Based on unprecedented archival research, Colonial Habits demonstrates how nuns became leading guarantors of their city's social order by making loans, managing property, containing "unruly" women, and raising girls. Coining the phrase "spiritual economy" to analyze the…


Book cover of Exquisite Slaves: Race, Clothing, and Status in Colonial Lima

Karen Graubart Why did I love this book?

I have always been intrigued by colonial paintings that show enslaved men and women in luxurious clothing as a testament to the wealth of their masters.

Tamara Walker's history of enslaved people and clothing opened a new world of enslaved people buying, inheriting, and even stealing clothing and jewelry as part of a social language. These men and women were not simply acquiring goods to mimic their betters; they were insisting upon their humanity and their participation in urban life. I was particularly convinced by her argument that enslaved and free Black men were expressing their desires to function as patriarchs by dressing their families in finery in a world that emasculated them.

It is an entertaining, surprising, and beautifully illustrated read.

By Tamara J. Walker,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Exquisite Slaves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In Exquisite Slaves, Tamara J. Walker examines how slaves used elegant clothing as a language for expressing attitudes about gender and status in the wealthy urban center of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Lima, Peru. Drawing on traditional historical research methods, visual studies, feminist theory, and material culture scholarship, Walker argues that clothing was an emblem of not only the reach but also the limits of slaveholders' power and racial domination. Even as it acknowledges the significant limits imposed on slaves' access to elegant clothing, Exquisite Slaves also showcases the insistence and ingenuity with which slaves dressed to convey their own sense…


Book cover of Passing to America: Antonio (Nee Maria) Yta's Transgressive, Transatlantic Life in the Twilight of the Spanish Empire

Karen Graubart Why did I love this book?

Truly one of the most exhilarating and surprising books I have read in a long time!

Abercrombie found a cache of documents left from the trial of Antonio Yta, born María Yta, who lived as a man after being tossed out of five different Spanish convents in the late eighteenth century. Yta ended up in South America, where he became a petty bureaucrat and married a Spanish woman who eventually turned him in to authorities. Along the way, Yta received permission from the Vatican to live and dress as a man. The story is not only full of ups and downs, but Abercrombie has transcribed a lot of the documentary record to show readers how Yta's family, friends, and colleagues struggled with who he was.

The book is divided into parts that tell the story, engage with different academic literature, and imagine Yta's life so that a reader can tailor their reading to their interests.

By Thomas A. Abercrombie,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Passing to America as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 1803 in the colonial South American city of La Plata, Dona Martina Vilvado y Balverde presented herself to church and crown officials to denounce her husband of more than four years, Don Antonio Yta, as a "woman in disguise." Forced to submit to a medical inspection that revealed a woman's body, Don Antonio confessed to having been Maria Yta, but continued to assert his maleness and claimed to have a functional "member" that appeared, he said, when necessary.

Passing to America is at once a historical biography and an in-depth examination of the sex/gender complex in an era before…


Karen Graubart Why did I love this book?

This book introduced me to the concept of a "private pregnancy." Imagine that you are a wealthy young woman in the colonial Spanish empire. Your beloved asks to marry you, and you agree; based on that agreement, you begin to have sexual relations. You become pregnant. In many cases, this would not matter: marriage would eventually legitimate that child.

But what if he leaves or dies? You and your family have to create a fiction that you are not pregnant, place your child elsewhere, and hope you live an honorable enough life that the child can someday also benefit from your reputation. This is the kernel of Twinam's story of how Latin American elites manufactured notions of honor within their society and how Spanish monarchs ended up publishing a price list for legitimating illegitimate births after the fact. It really revealed the mindset behind elite society, not only colonial but modern, too.

Explore my book 😀

With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550-1700

By Karen Graubart,

Book cover of With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550-1700

What is my book about?

The colonization of Peru disrupted the lives of millions. Indigenous women responded to the Spanish invasion and their voracious demands for labor and goods in many different ways. Here, I trace how Indigenous women in two colonial cities, Lima and Trujillo, wrestled with social relations and the economy. In many cases, they adopted ways that allowed them to find some success. Many left wills, which explain how they integrated into the Catholic church, how they borrowed or made loans to support their businesses, how they dressed and presented themselves, and how they managed their resources. Without wearing rose-colored glasses, I take urban Indigenous women's lives as a window through which to see the birth of a colonized world.

Book cover of Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico
Book cover of Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru
Book cover of Exquisite Slaves: Race, Clothing, and Status in Colonial Lima

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By Clifford A. Wright,

Book cover of An Italian Feast: The Celebrated Provincial Cuisines of Italy from Como to Palermo

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Philosopher Historian Researcher Gastronomer Bibliophile and reviewer

Clifford's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

An Italian Feast celebrates the cuisines of the Italian provinces from Como to Palermo. A culinary guide and book of ready reference meant to be the most comprehensive book on Italian cuisine, and it includes over 800 recipes from the 109 provinces of Italy's 20 regions.

An Italian Feast is a gastronomy about Italian culinary history and consciousness, about how Italians cook, eat, and how their food is an intimate part of their culture. It is the first book in any language to comprehensively explore the gastronomy and cuisine not just of Italy, and not just the regions of Italy,…

An Italian Feast: The Celebrated Provincial Cuisines of Italy from Como to Palermo

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Interested in clothing, Latin America, and Spain?

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