Silver and Entrepreneurship in Seventeenth-Century Potosí: The Life and Times of Antonio López de Quiroga

Displaying exemplary business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit in precapitalist times, Antonio López de Quiroga became the largest silver refiner of the Spanish empire in the seventeenth century. Bakewell's study, first published in 1988, traces the emigrant Spaniard's life and career against the backdrop of Potosi, the great Andean mining center.