The size of the New World aboriginal population at the timeof European contact is a complex topic and has engenderedsignificant academic debate and controversy. The 1976 firstedition of this volume was regarded by reviewers, and byscholarly and lay readers, as a masterful and valuablesynthesis. Therefore, students of demographic studies,whether anthropologists, geographers, or historians, amongothers, eagerly awaited the publication of Denevan's secondedition. Unfortunately, this anticipation is unjustified. Inaddition to Lovell's "Foreward," the new material consists ofDenevan's 13-page emendation (pp.xvii-xxix) and anaccompanying 8-page "Supplementary Bibliography" (pp.xxi-xxxviii; 140 entries dating from 1963-1991). These areseparate from a bibliography (589 references covering 1586-1974), an index, and a 144-item glossary, all of which areidentical to those of the first edition. Four essays appearedpreviously but were revised for the 1976 edition. It is myunderstanding that the original authors were not asked toprovide new materials. Two of them (Radell and Pyle) had leftacademia, one had retired (Borah), and another died(Rosenblat). Therefore, the current edition, excepting a fewtypographical errors and editor's notes (p.66, 240) follows itspredecessor page-for-page and word-for-word.

In the emendation entitled "Native American Populations in1492: Recent Research and a Revised Hemispheric Estimate,"Denevan reviews the major research and commentarypublished since 1976 on Native American populations atcontact and on their subsequent decline. He notes that "thematter of the rate and degree of decline, especially fromdisease, is significant for estimating original numbers, andhas received substantial attention" (p.xviii). The eightchaptersare organized into five parts, each with a prefactory essay byDenevan in which relevant literature and demographicproblems are reviewed. Regrettably, the emendations do notfollow the same regional organization format as the chapters,making concordances difficult. Each regional contributionemphasizes a number of methods of estimating nativepopulations, ranging from the use of tribute lists and taxrecords to carrying capacities and statistical models to family-size projections and "conversion factors."

Part I consists of one chapter on aboriginal and colonialAmerican demography by Woodrow Borah in which he reviews(as of 1976) the dispute over the nature and estimates ofpreconquest and colonial period populations. Six othergeographically oriented chapters concern Latin America andone is devoted to North America north of Mesoamerica.

In "Part II: The Caribbean, Central America, and Yucatan,"Angel Rosenblat's contribution on Hispaniola, based upon his1976 work, was emended by Denevan (pp.xxiii-xxiv), whosummarizes Henige's reanalysis of the island. David Radell'sessay on the indian slave trade and demography of Nicaragua,revised from his 1969 dissertation, is updated within Denevan's"Central America" review (pp.xxii-xxiii). Work by Lovell (onGuatemala) and Newson (Nicaragua and Honduras), amongother scholars, is outlined.

In "Part III: Mexico," the longest chapter in the book (writtenby William Sanders, which is a revision of his 1970 work),emphasizes Central Mexico, and presents a critique of the so-called "Berkeley School." Lamentably, the chapter is notrevised to include Sanders' latest thinking (see Sanders,Parsons, and Santley, The Basin of Mexico, 1979, amongother publications). However, Denevan cites more recentwork by Zambardino, Whitmore, van Bath, Dobyns, and

TteLATIN AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW 5(1) 39

others (pp.xxi-xxii).In "Part IV: South America," there are three chapters, one

by archaeologist Daniel Shea on the Central Andes, acontribution by Jane Pyle on Argentina, and an insightfulessay by Denevan on Amazonia, revised from a 1970publication. In the 1992 edition, Denevan updates demographicstudies for the whole Andean Region (pp.xxiv-xxv), citingwork by N. D. Cook, Zambardino, Dobyns, and other scholars.For Amazonia (pp.xxv-xxvii) recent publications by Myers,Henning, and Denevan are examined.

In "Part V: North America," an original contribution preparedin 1975 by Douglas Ubelaker was a strength of the first editionin that unpublished societal demographic estimates assembledfor the Handbook of North American Indians (WilliamSturtevant, editor, 1978 ff.) were used to arrive at a 1500 A.D.calculation of 2,171,125 inhabitants. Ubelaker's workdemonstrates that detailed studies of earlier estimates(Mooney's, for example), may yield more useful results thanthe application of new techniques. In 1988 Ubelaker revisedhis estimate downward to 1,894,350 in 1500, whereas Denevancalculates 3,790,000 for the same area in 1492.

The methodologies used to derive the demographicestimates, their rationale-or lack thereof-and interpretiveconflicts, still provide interesting reading. Denevan has nowrevised his original estimates for 1492 from 57,300,000 (1976)to 53,904,000 (1992), a net loss of 3,396,000. The greatest"loss" occurs in Central Mexico (minus 4,461,000) and iscompensated for by a "gain" in the Central Andean calculation(plus 4,196,000). Of the 21 regions summarized in table 1(p.xxiii), Denevan sees demographic declines in eight,increases in seven, and no change in six others.

The first edition was a standard reference although it was,and remains in the new edition, uneven both with respect togeographical coverage and with respect to quality;emendations do not rectify this criticism. The paperbacksecond edition of Denevan's work costs almost the same asthe cloth first edition. Readers may wish to consider the costof the new edition versus 21 pages of emendation.

Disease, Depopulation, and Cultural Change inNorthwestern New Spain, 1518-1784. DANIEL T.REFF. Salt Lake City; University of Utah Press,1990. 416 pp. $35.00 (cloth). ISBN 0-87480-355-1.

MARVIN ALLISONMedical College of Virginia

This book is a regional demographic study of northwesternMexico, southern Arizona, and New Mexico in the UnitedStates between 1518 and 1784. The native populationsstudied are mainly those from Sinaloa and Sonora. This workis different from the numerous other available regional studiesin that it links demography with disease and associates thisregion with groups of native communities that largely escapedthe exploitation of miners and encomenderos. It became amission area of the Jesuits in early 1590 which gave them avirtual monopoly and control over the native population. Thusfrom the 1590s there exists a voluminous and reliablecorrespondence concerning the missions with an abundanceof entries on related health problems and epidemics associatedwith the populace. The diseases responsible for the demise

40 7tel_ATIN AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGY REVIEW 5(1)

of much of the population in these areas were mainly Europeanviral diseases which do not leave any mark on the skeleton.Archaeological studies that were undertaken in this area forover one hundred years were generally uninformativeconcerning the causes of death during this early historicalperiod. Early explorers to this part of the New World oftenalluded to kingdoms with large populations and complicatedeconomic and social structures. The authorin chapter2 pointsout that the writings of the Jesuits speak only of small villageswith unsophisticated social and economic structures,suggesting that the European diseases had decimated thepopulations before 1590. Chapter 3 provides a detaileddisease chronology of northwestern Mexico. It shows theadvances of European agents of disease through this areawhich was a route for the flow of goods and people to theexpanding mining areas of Durango and Chihuahuaas well asthe colonization of New Mexico. Disease is shown to extendfar beyond the mission areas destroying native communitiesand disrupting the political and economic systems of thenative populations through the seventeenth century. Chapterfour suggests that the demographic consequences reducedthe populations far from areas of Jesuit contact by as much as50 percent primarily due to a high infant mortality that left onlya few individuals alive to reach reproductive age. Reffmaintains that the Jesuits filled a managerial void left bycaciques and shamans due to destruction of the nativesocieties by disease. He believes that they played little rolein the introduction of European innovations such as wheat,cattle, chicken or methods of farming. At the same time theCatholic religion replaced shamanism, which failed to halt thespread of death and disease. Although Christian baptism waslooked upon as a possible salvation from disease and broughtsome 500,000 converts, eventually the survivors of theEuropean plagues were those native groups that were smalland mobile with a very limited contact with Spaniards orsedentary natives in the missions.

This book is very well documented and interesting reading.It shows the cause of native society collapse from a realisticviewpoint independent of the more obvious crimes of Spanishforced labor such as the "mita of Potosf or excessive tributepaying and service to encomenderos.

Between the Summit and the Sea: Central Veracruzin the Nineteenth Century. ALFRED H. SIEMENS.Vancover: University of British Columbia Press,1990. 234 pp. $39.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-7748-0354-1.

RICHARD BRADLEYUniversity of Oklahoma

This is an unusual, but noteworthy piece of scholarship.The author aptly calls it a "literary analysis," yet, because itssubject matter consists of nineteenth-century documents, itsethnohistorical significance should not be overlooked. Siemensreviews a wide range of writings by academics, ForeignService personnel, adventurers, merchants, military personnel,and sundry others, that pertain to the overland route from theport of Veracruz to Jalapa, Mexico. In effect he attempts, andsucceeds to a large extent, to demonstrate the correlationbetween these early writings and subsequent perceptions ofthe tropical lowlands as unhealthy and of little redeeming

value, either economically or culturally.The imagery woven by these accounts all contain a common

thread, that is, that one's chances of survival increases as oneascends from the coast to the upper elevations, passingthrough distinctive altitudinal zones, each with its own particularattraction and hazard, until one reaches the oaks aroundJalapa.

The primary, and certainly the most imminent fear thatfaced shipborne arrivals, besides being caught shipboardduring a hurricane (norte), was malaria. The joy andexuberance of sighting land after a long ocean voyage wasquickly tempered by the real possibility of succumbing to thedisease. Therefore, arriving passengers often departedposthaste from port, only to be rewarded with bone-rattlingrides and potential acts of banditry. The result was thatlowlanders received scant "good press" as few travelers hadthe inclination or the wherewithal to explore the localsurroundings. Their glimpses of the inhabitants were grosslyskewed towards the negative as they only saw a few framesof the whole picture. Consequently, these impressions of thelowlanders, also known as Jarachos, as indolent and boastfulamidst a bountiful and unharnessed nature, became lastingimpressions that in turn were spread abroad via the printmedia.

The published accounts of these travelers collectively attestto the natural beauty of the countryside, but also emphasizethat it is a beauty that masks the dangers lurking within thefloral and faunal worlds. These biased perceptions becamethe standard by which foreigners, and even Mexican uplanders,viewed the tropical lowlands. Siemens rightfully notes theimpact that Alexander von Humboldt's writings hold on thetravelers, as he says, "Almost all of them will have carriedHumboldt in their baggage, literally or figuratively" (p. xvii).Even though Humboldt's most notable work concentrated onSouth America, and his travels through the Mexican tropicswas brief, his perceptions set the tone forthose who followed.

Siemens highlights the need for a more careful analysis ofhow Pre-Columbians and contemporary campesinos haveutilized the lowlands, for example, through the construction ofcanals, platforms, and shifting agriculture, to feed large andsmall populations without permanently altering the land.Fortunately, such ideas are becoming more common andacknowledged as worthy of research.

I was especially pleased to see Siemens recognize LeonardoPasquel, the staunch Veracruzana, who recently retired ashead of the Editorial Citlaltepetl. Pasquel's passion forVeracruz, while often disproportionately glowing andunreserved, has produced numerous reissues of otherwiseobscure and nearly inaccessible works. I enjoyed the bookand anyone interested in the tropics, especially the Mexicantropics, will surely do so as well.

Ancient Road Networks and Settlement Hierarchiesin the New World. CHARLES D.TROMBOLD (editor).Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. 263pp., 4 color plates, 9 tables, maps and figures.$69.95 (cloth). ISBN 0-521-38337-4.

TERRY Y. LeVINEUniversity of California, Los Angeles

During the heated political campaign of fall 1992, a significant