Research Catalog

Title

The wages of conquest : the Mexican aristocracy in the context of Western aristocracies / Hugo G. Nutini.

Author

Nutini, Hugo G.

Publication

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [1995], ©1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xviii, 444 pages; 24 cm

Summary

• Three generations after the Mexican Revolution, the Mexican aristocracy maintains a remarkable awareness of itself as a social class. In The Wages of Conquest, anthropologist Hugo G. Nutini sets out to study this social institution, which has shown an unparalleled continuity in structure, form, and content since its beginning with the Spanish conquest of Mexico.
• The first part of the book gives an outline of Western social stratification from Greco-Roman times, through the Dark and Middle Ages, to the transition from estate to class after the French and American Revolutions. Focusing on social mobility, expression - the behaviors and practices that identify members of different groups - and various combinations of social, ruling, and political functions, Nutini demonstrates that Western aristocracies constitute a unitary system.
• In the second part, Nutini explores the particular case of the Mexican aristocracy, giving a detailed description of its inception, development, flowering, and decline. As he explores the transformation of Mexico throughout Colonial and Republican times he clarifies why despite its loss of political and economic power the Mexican aristocracy is still an institution to be reckoned with.
• This volume will interest sociologists, historians, political scientists, and anthropologists who study Latin America, where several local aristocracies have played powerful roles until recently.

Subject

• Aristocracy (Social class) > Mexico > History

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 403-423) and index.

Contents

1. The Formation of Western Stratification: From Greco-Roman Times to the Dark Ages -- 2. Predominance of the Estate System throughout the Middle Ages -- 3. Realignment of Society and the Transition from Estate to Class in Modern Times -- 4. The Conquest of Mexico and the Formation of a Landed Aristocracy in the Sixteenth Century -- 5. Ideology and Expressive Configuration of the Creole Aristocracy as a Social and Ruling Class -- 6. The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Economic Dominance and the Growth of Honors and Dignities -- 7. The Nineteenth Century: Expressive and Structural Changes in the Transformation from an Estate to a Class System -- 8. The Twentieth Century: Political Obliteration, Economic Decline, and Expressive Survival.

ISBN

0472104845 (acid-free paper)

LCCN

94024553

OCLC

ocm31173909

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries