Rural Rhythms of Class Conflict in Eighteenth-Century Cochabamba
A decade ago in the midst of the heated debate over A. G. Frank's contribution and his shortcomings in not giving sufficient attention to the internal dynamics of societies,1 Enrique Florescano quietly discovered the pulse of agrarian life in eighteenth-century central Mexico and published his monograph on maize prices and agricultural crises.2 He drew his inspiration and much of his methodology from the rich French historiographical tradition in agricultural price history.3 Perhaps Florescano's most significant contribution, like that of Labroussian history, was to show the social significance of the agricultural cycles and trends that he plotted. As Krzysztof Pomian wrote recently, Labrousse's study of economic fluctuations was