The Social History of Colonial Spanish America

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In this issue of larr we publish a symposium of three interconnected Articles on the developing subject of the social history of Latin America in the colonial period.The three papers originated with a session of the 1968 annual meeting of the American Historical Association. At that meeting, Professors Frederick P. Bowser and Karen Spalding presented papers, Professor James Lockhart gave a commentary, and the Editor was chairman. The three authors* negative reaction to the conventional wording of the session title, together with other historiographical positions they held in common, made them aware that a new movement in social and ethnic history was taking shape in the colonial Spanish American field. The three colonialists and the Editor of LARR therefore began to plan the joint publication in LARR of articles which would take formal cognizance of the movement and make its scattered members more aware of the issues in the field and of the activities of other scholars engaged in related research.