Ward Allen Stavig, Professor of History at the University of South Florida, died on May 1, 2006, at the age of 58. Professor Stavig received his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis, in 1991 and during the subsequent 15 years compiled a distinguished record of research and publication. This began with a series of essays on the social history of Peru and Bolivia that explored such hard-to-approach topics as love and sexual violence, indigenous values, Andean culture and ethnicity, conflict, violence, and resistance, and criminality. His major book-length publication is The World of Tupac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial Peru. He was also active in the profession, serving as executive secretary for the Conference on Latin American History, refereeing journal submissions, and writing reviews.All of Stavig’s published work bore the mark of indefatigable field research in Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. Practically living in the archives for long stretches of time enabled him to examine the culture of ordinary people: to understand their debts and doubts, to comprehend both their base and noble impulses, and above all, to take them on their own terms. His published work, like that of E. P. Thompson — a historian he much admired — sought to rescue his Andean weavers and peasants from “the enormous condescension of posterity.”This historical sensitivity was complemented by a remarkable on-the-ground experience throughout much of Latin America but particularly among the people of Canas y Canchis near Cuzco, with whom he shared more than one cup of frothy chicha or roast cuy. This sensitivity and empathy for working people in Peru derived, in turn, from his own hardscrabble, small-town, rustic boyhood in northern California; Ward cherished his background, and many features of it carried over in his compassion for the less fortunate and his love for the outdoors. He was an accomplished and responsible hunter and fisherman.As a teacher, Professor Stavig was determined to give students the benefit of his historical, and unusual personal, perspective. He was not a dazzling talker to large classes, and at first glance, he might have seemed almost excessively quiet or understated. But as students were drawn into his orbit, into his gentle and respectful manner of presenting information and ideas, his profound qualities became more and more apparent.Everyone who knew Ward Stavig must have come in touch with his all-embracing hospitality, his generosity and exquisitely tender manner among people from all walks of life. Many were deeply moved by his integrity; he lived by the deepest human principles, incapable of betrayal or dishonesty.In July, Ward’s ashes were scattered to the four winds in a part of California’s Trinity Alps known as “Hobo Gulch”; from there, one imagines, on they went, floating down the North Fork of the Trinity past the summer steel-head and chinook salmon darting upstream and then down to the sea where Ward loved to stand, hip-deep in the surf, casting his net for schools of running smelt.Ward is mourned by his wife, the anthropologist Ella Schmidt, their two daughters Lucia and Mariana, his mother, Lois Stavig of Willits, California, and a wide circle of friends, admirers, colleagues, students, hunters, and fishermen — all of whom enjoyed his table groaning under the weight of trout, duck, venison in mole poblano, papas a la huancaino, and abundant bottles of decent red wine.