I read Maria Arana's book, Silver, Sword, and Stone last week. It's not really a history book, but I didn't figure that out until about halfway through. In the epilogue she says it's not a history book and that probably would have worked better in the preface. But it was an interesting read. It tried to trace back problems in Latin America to the conquest by focusing on silver mining and greed, violence (sword), and religion (stone).

It was an interesting book and I enjoyed it. I'm not sure I found her argument very convincing b/c I lean towards the institutionalists' explanation. But it was a good book. She uses interesting people to try and highlight her points. There was some really interesting stuff on the modern impact of mining in South America. B/c of the current state of Venezuela most of the mining there is illegal with huge environmental repercussions. It wasn't very long and covered a lot of territory. It's a decent survey of the topic and would make a good airplane book. I don't think I'd recommend it if you already know something on the topic.