In this beautifully narrated and painstakingly researched history, Stephenson follows the tracks of the Andean camelid from Spanish colonial times in the high Andes, to Europe’s scientific laboratories, to the global marketplace in exotica and fibers through five centuries of Western imperial history. En route, it offers novel insights into the West’s predatory cultural contacts with Andean pastoral communities and the magnificent animals that sustained them.
~Brooke Larson, Stony Brook University, author of The Lettered Indian: Race, Nation, and Indigenous Education in Twentieth-Century Bolivia
This is a paradigm-shifting work with regard to the global histories of domestication, biotic exchange, and animal studies. It provides vivid, meticulously researched stories of the cultural ferment, the human drama, and the experiences of the animals themselves as these charismatic creatures reached new and unexpected shores with great difficulty.
~Greg Cushman, University of Arizona, author of Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World: A Global Ecological History
In her brilliant new book, Marcia Stephenson goes beyond the fascination that Europeans showed for camelids as part of a New World exotica to pay attention to the symbolic meanings that these animals had within Andean culture, history, and religion, and how those meanings were transformed and appropriated once the animals were removed from their native habitats and circulated in other global contact zones. No other book offers such an informed examination, enabling us to understand the colonial legacies that permeated such projects. The interdisciplinary approach, well-chosen archival material, broad scope (geographically and temporarily), and outstanding analysis of the primary sources make this book a vital contribution.
~Mariselle Meléndez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Deviant and Useful Citizens: The Cultural Production of the Female Body in Eighteenth-Century Peru
