In 1569 the Spanish viceroy Francisco de Toledo ordered more than one million native people of the central Andes to move to newly founded Spanish-style towns called reducciones. This campaign, known as the General Resettlement of Indians, represented a turning point in the history of European colonialism: a state forcing an entire conquered society to change its way of life overnight. But while this radical restructuring destroyed certain aspects of indigenous society, Jeremy Ravi Mumford's Vertical Empire reveals the ways that it preserved others. The campaign drew on colonial...

In 1569 the Spanish viceroy Francisco de Toledo ordered more than one million native people of the central Andes to move to newly founded Spanish-style towns called reducciones. This campaign, known as the General Resettlement of Indians, represented a turning point in the history of European colonialism: a state forcing an entire conquered society to change its way of life overnight. But while this radical restructuring destroyed certain aspects of indigenous society, Jeremy Ravi Mumford's Vertical Empire reveals the ways that it preserved others. The campaign drew on colonial...