""Shaky Colonialism "is a superior work of scholarship. Charles F. Walker uses a dramatic incident and its aftermath to present a very intelligent analysis of baroque colonialism and its halting transformation into the Enlightenment-inspired absolutism of the Bourbons. He balances human drama and color to pull the reader into a very serious analysis of colonial society."--Peter Guardino, author of "The Time of Liberty: Popular Political Culture in Oaxaca, 1750-1850"

Tables ix
Acknowledgments xi
1. Earthquakes, Tsunamies, Absolutism, and Lima 1
2. Balls of Fire: Premonitions and the Destruction of Lima 21
3. The City of Kings: Before and After 52
4. Stabilizing the Unstable and Ordering the Disorderly 74
5. Contending Notions of Lima: Obstacles to Urban Reform in the Aftermath 90
6. Licentious Friars, Wandering Nuns, and Tangled Censos: A Shakeup of the Church 106
7. Controlling Women's Bodies and Placating God's Wrath: Moral Reform 131
8. "All These Indians and Black People Bear Us No Good Will": The Lima and Huarochirí Rebellions of 1750 156
Epilogue: Aftershocks and Echoes 186
Notes 193
Bibliography 223
Index 251

Charles F. Walker is Professor of History and Director of the Hemispheric Institute on the Americas at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840, also published by Duke University Press.