Author: David L. Haskell File Type: pdf The Two Tariacuris and the Early Colonial and Prehispanic Past of Michoacan investigates how the elites of the Tarascan kingdom of Central Mexico sought to influence interactions with Spanish colonialism by reworking the past to suit their present circumstances. Author David L. Haskell examines the rhetorical power of the Relacion de Michoacana chronicle written from 1539 to 1541 by Franciscan friar Jeronimo de Alcala based on substantial indigenous testimony and widely considered to be an extremely important document to the study of early colonial relations and the prehispanic past. Haskell focuses on one such testimonial, the narrative of the kingdoms Chief Priest relaying the history of the royal family. This analysis reveals that both the structure of that narrative and its content convey meaning about the nature of rulership and how conceptualizations of rulership shaped indigenous responses to colonialism in the region. Informed by theoretical approaches to narrative, historicity, structure, and agency developed by cultural and historical anthropologists, Haskell demonstrates that the author of the Relacion de Michoacan shaped, and was shaped by, a culturally distinct conceptualization and experience of the time in which the past and the present are mutually informing. The book asks, How reliable are past accounts of events when these accounts are removed from the events they describe? How do the personal agendas of past chroniclers and their informants shape our present understanding of their cultural history? How do we interpret chronicles such as the Relacion de Michoacan on multiple levels? It also demonstrates that answers to these questions are possible when attention is paid to the context of narrative production and the narratives themselves are read closely. The Two Tariacuris and the Early Colonial and Prehispanic Past of Michoacan makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on indigenous experience and its cultural manifestations in Early Colonial period Central Mexico and the anthropological literature on historicity and narrative. It will be of interest to Mesoamerican specialists of all disciplines, cultural and historical anthropologists, and theorists and critics of narrative. **

Author: Carl Smith File Type: pdf A city is more than a massing of citizens, a layout of buildings and streets, or an arrangement of political, economic, and social institutions. It is also an infrastructure of ideas that are a support for the beliefs, values, and aspirations of the people who created the city. In City Water, City Life, celebrated historian Carl Smith explores this concept through an insightful examination of the development of the first successful waterworks systems in Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago between the 1790s and the 1860s. By examining the place of water in the nineteenth-century consciousness, Smith illuminates how city dwellers perceived themselves during the great age of American urbanization.But City Water, City Life is more than a history of urbanization.It is also a refreshing meditation on water as a necessity, as a resource for commerce and industry, and as an essentialand centralpart of how we define our civilization. **Review City Water, City Life is a gem of a book, a tightly focused meditation on the antebellum citys infrastructure of ideas. By masterfully compressing myriad period sources, Carl Smith makes major contributions to our understanding of American society and culture. (Harold Platt, Loyola University Chicago) A fascinating history of the ideas about nature, health, citizenship, and time that informed the construction of some of Americas earliest and greatest water systems. By demonstrating that our urban aqueducts are built out of ideas as much as bricks and mortar, Carl Smith ensures that a simple glass of water will never seem so simple again. (Michael Rawson, author of Eden on the Charles The Making of Boston) A crucially important new chapter in US urban history. With impeccable research, Carl Smith seamlessly synthesizes nineteenth-century issues of politics, engineering, finance, aesthetics, law, and medicineall focused on the creation of water systems in three major cities and all coalescing around the idea of the greater good of the public at large. City Water, City Life speaks from history to this contemporary moment when the United States confronts, yet again, the debate over public versus private control of its water. (Cecelia Tichi, Vanderbilt University) A wonderfully perceptive book that provides new insights into the development and implications of water supply in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. Readers will find especially valuable Carl Smiths use of cultural, environmental, and health-related frames to construct an infrastructure of ideas relating to water. (Joel A. Tarr, Carnegie Mellon University) What a nuanced treatment of water! In City Water, City Life,Carl Smith breathes new life into our understanding of the impact of water supply through his study of Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago. While we know a great deal about the systems themselves and how they were developed, Smith focuses on transcendent qualities of water befitting its central role in our lives. As such, he has expanded the audience who will derive a great deal of satisfaction from this study. (Martin V. Melosi, author of The Sanitary City) A well-researched, engaging read. . . . Recommended. (Choice) This collective examination of three cities allows for a broader understanding of the meanings that American city-dwellers attached to their aqueducts, pipes, pumps, and faucets, and the water that these public works delivered. (Journal of Interdisciplinary History) Smith has made an important contribution to our understanding of nineteenth-century urban America by uncovering the cultural foundations of one of our most vital infrastructure networks. (American Historical Review) Elegant and concise. (Journal of American History) About the Author Carl Smith is the Franklyn Bliss Snyder Professor of English and American Studies and professor of history at Northwestern University. His books include three prize-winning volumes Chicago and the American Literary Imagination, 1880-1920 Urban Disorder and the Shape of Belief The Great Chicago Fire, the Haymarket Bomb, and the Model Town of Pullman and The Plan of Chicago Daniel Burnham and the Remaking of the American City.