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Colonial Habits: Convents and the Spiritual Economy of Cuzco, Peru Paperback – Illustrated, March 29, 1999

4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

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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 intricate investments and relationships that enabled Cuzco’s convents and their backers to thrive, Burns explains how, by the late 1700s, this economy had faltered badly, making convents an emblem of decay and a focal point for intense criticism of a failing colonial regime. By the nineteenth century, the nuns had retreated from their previous roles, marginalized in the construction of a new republican order.
Providing insight that can be extended well outside the Andes to the relationships articulated by convents across much of Europe, the Americas, and beyond,
Colonial Habits will engage those interested in early modern economics, Latin American studies, women in religion, and the history of gender, class, and race.
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“It is fascinating to revisit the history of Cuzco through the gates of the convent. Burns’ clear, succinct prose, her gift for narrative, her eye for detail, and her engagement of larger issues of power, gender, and race make this an attractive book for a wide variety of readers.”—Brooke Larson, SUNY Stony Brook

Burns’s important and highly readable work takes a fresh look at the key economic, social, and cultural relationships that created and sustained a densely woven urban-centered colonial society in the Andes. Among its new findings: at the heart of the economy of colonial Cuzco, a credit institution run by women favored the conquered indigenous elite with long-term finance at concessionary interest rates.”—John Coatsworth, Harvard University

“[A] thoughtful and well-written study. . . [and] an important contribution to the understanding of Andean and Latin American history.”―
Kenneth Mills, American Historical Review

“[I]maginatively conceived and expertly executed. Dr. Burns writes a graceful and lucid prose that enlightens and delights. This is a book for specialists, for general readers curious about its subject matter, and for anyone who loves insightful and engaging works of history.”―
John C. Moore, Report of the Chairman of the Committee on the John Gilmary Shea Prize, The Catholic Historical R

“[I]maginatively researched, logically organized, and intelligently constructed. . . . [T]his is a wonderful study.
Colonial Habits makes an elegant and a major contribution to the history of women and gender in colonial and nineteenth-century Spanish America. Its accessibility will make it a natural assignment for undergraduates; its content will make it a standard for experts.”―Ann Twinam, Journal of Women's History

“[M]eticulously researched and exquisitely written. Burns is one of the best prose writers working in the field today, and her story unfolds effortlessly and harmoniously. . . . With her excellent book Kathyrn Burns, has thrown the evolution of Peru’s Andean region into new relief, and produced a leading work within this emerging field.”―
Ellen Gunnarsdóttir, Latin American Studies

“Burns provides an important means of addressing the role of Colonial Cuzco’s convents, in a well-written and engaging narrative that incorporates archival documents from both administrative and religious archives. Vivid accounts of individual lives are well integrated with discussion of how Cuzco’s nuns mediated the sacred/secular divide to advance or simply preserve their corporate interests.”―
R. Alan Covey, Comparative Studies in Society and History

“Burns’s fine study reveals the nuns as a critical factor in the subjugation of the Incas, the creation of a creole Peruvian elite, and in the annual provision of finance for the whole regional economy.”―
Iain S. Maclean, Religious Studies Review

“Carefully researched [and] well-written, . . .
Colonial Habits makes important contributions to the historiography of colonial Spanish America, and deserves a wide readership.”―Kenneth J. Andrien, Journal of Interdisciplinary History

“Except as saints and sinners, women have been marginalized in the study of colonial Peru. Kathryn Burns, however, in
Colonial Habits, reconstructs the world of Cuzco by placing women at the center. The realignment is original and instructive, and, by focusing on convents, the author chooses virtually the only institution where women exercised real authority and gained some independence. . . . [H]er book is a product of perseverance as well as of scholarship.”―TLS

“In a well-researched and carefully considered study, Kathryn Burns makes a serious case for the important role cloistered nuns played as the center of economic and spiritual life in colonial Cuzco from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, a role that remains influential to this day. . . .
Colonial Habits is a highly readable work that introduces valuable historical data and provides a fascinating analysis of the economy and spiritual interests in colonial Cuzco.”―Sister Maria Consuelo Sparks, Colonial Latin American Historical Review

“In this fascinating and well-researched reconstruction of convent life, Burns lays the axe to several widespread assumptions. . . . It is frequently said that to understand colonial religious life one must understand colonial society. But
Colonial Habits suggests that the reverse is equally true—to undersand colonial society fully one must enter the inner world of its convents and monasteries.”―Jeffrey L. Klaiber, Church History

“Kathryn Burns’s book provides original insights into several of the most significant and contested areas of colonial history, particularly those concerning race, religion, family history, and economic development. Scholars of colonial Latin America will find much of interest in this fascinating, multi-faceted book.”―
Elizabeth Anne Kuznesof, The Americas

“Richly textured, this work is well anchored in archival research and fulfills the ambition of its author to create a new historical locus for the institutions as well as for the women who created and managed them.”―
Asunción Lavrin, Catholic Historical Review

From the Back Cover

Burns's important and highly readable work takes a fresh look at the key economic, social, and cultural relationships that created and sustained a densely woven urban-centered colonial society in the Andes. Among its new findings: at the heart of the economy of colonial Cuzco, a credit institution run by women favored the conquered indigenous elite with long-term finance at concessionary interest rates."--John Coatsworth, Harvard University

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Duke University Press Books; Illustrated edition (March 29, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 320 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0822322919
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0822322917
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1560L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 0.8 x 9.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on September 16, 2019
    An absolutely fantastic history of the financial history of Cusco. Cusco had eccentrically created its own weapon of financial destruction much like the CDS of 2007.
  • Reviewed in the United States on November 12, 2015
    Extraordinary book.
  • Reviewed in the United States on January 27, 2015
    Very well written!
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2020
    One of my favorite books in Latin American history. Burns takes us inside Cusco's colonial convents but also shows how they shaped the Andean colonial via credit. The biographies are splendid and the overall argument important and convincing.
  • Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2012
    Colonial Habits analyzes the roles that convents played in Cuzco, Peru--and by extension, in Latin America in general--from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth century. Cuzco got its first convent, Santa Clara, in 1558, within a generation of Spanish conquest, and two more convents, Santa Catalina and Santa Teresa, in the seventeenth century. Burns argues that the convents, though walled off from the hustle and bustle of the city, played important roles in Cuzco's community life: first as environments in which the mestiza daughters of the conquerors could be educated, converted, and assimilated to Spanish colonial society; then as powerful landlords and lenders in mature colonial society; and always as power brokers in Cuzco's "spiritual economy," dispensing both prayers and social capital to the families that patronized them. After independence, Cuzco's convents declined in size and importance as new secular schools and charities took on some of their earlier roles.

    One of the charming features of this book is that Burns discusses her research process as well as her conclusions: the types of documents she found, the nuns' interpretations of and responses to her research agenda, and the experience of returning daily to the locutario, the grille through which cloistered nuns communicated with the outside world. Burns's descriptions of the locutario, in particular, are wonderfully evocative. Highly recommended.
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