Silver : Oxford University Press : 9780197267547 : 0197267548 : 21 Dec 2023 : Silver transformed and convulsed the early modern world. Silver, even more than gold, occupied a deeply charged intersection of forces and dynamics - philosophical, religious, material, telluric, economic, colonialist, social, cultural, and courtly - that traversed and profoundly altered the world. Silver from the so-called 'New World' bankrolled and justified the Spanish monarchy in its landgrab, wars, and empire building in both the Americas and in Europe. The great mountain of fabulously rich silver, Cerro Ricco in Potosì, relentlessly exploited by the Spanish invaders from 1545, irrevocably changed power relations, empires, and entire social and environmental ecologies across the globe. Accelerating global commerce and the growth of capitalism, trade in silver intensified the accumulation of capital and uneven trade balances, and enhanced the wealth of northern Europe at the expense of the Global South, p