Offers a social history of the Mexican mission enterprise, emphasizing the centrality of indigenous politics, economics, and demographic catastrophe.

Ryan Dominic Crewe is Associate Professor of History at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Introduction; Part I. Conversion: 1. The burning temple: religion and conquest in Mesoamerica and the Iberian Atlantic, circa 1500; 2. Christening colonialism: the politics of conversion in post-conquest Mexico; Part II. Construction: 3. The staff, the lash, and the trumpet: the native infrastructure of the mission enterprise; 4. Paying for Thebaid: the colonial economy of a mendicant paradise; 5. Building in the shadow of death: monastery construction and the politics of community reconstitution; Part III. A Fraying Fabric: 6. The burning church: native and Spanish wars over the mission enterprise; 7. Hecatomb; Epilogue: Salazar's doubt: global echoes of the Mexican mission.