Indigenous Rulers: An Ethnohistory of Town Government in Colonial Cuernavaca by Haskett, Robert Stephen (1952- ) - 1991

xii+294 pages with maps, tables, appendix, bibliography and index. Royal octavo (9 1/4" x 6") bound in original publisher's brown cloth with black lettering to spine and design to cover. First edition. Robert Haskett's book is the more ambitious of the two studies in its temporal depth, social reach, and methodology. Haskett traces the evolution of local indigenous town government int eh Cuernavaca area from the conquest until the eve of independence from Spain. His theme is that of adaption and continuity on the part of the indigenous ruling elite-the preservation of its political hegemony, social prestige, and and wealth throughout three centuries, if not completely undiminished, then at least in greater degree than we have been wont to believe. In this, Haskett's study takes issue with conventional wisdom that at least in the institutions of local government-the cabildos superimposed by the Spanish regime on the native altepetl (city-state) structures-pre-conquest political arrangements were massively simplified , native society social compressed, and indigenous elites replaced wholesale by arriviste commoners. Condition: A fine copy.