This work of exceptional scholarly endeavour is of a type that appears once in a lifetime. Both a unique reference source and a major contribution to the substantive historiography of Andean historiography, it includes contributions from 122 scholars drawn from 19 countries. Dr Pillsbury, Director of Studies of the Pre-Columbian Program at Dumbarton Oaks, has plainly managed the project with magisterial authority, flexibility and all the necessary attention to detail that such an ambitious inventory demands. Equally, one should recognise the evidently vital role of the Editorial Board (Catherine Julien, Kenneth Andrien and Eric Deeds), itself supported by another six editors, all of whom make contributions to the volumes, sometimes several times. Indeed, this project has surely involved the collaboration of more Andeanists, at least historians and anthropologists, than any other in modern times.

Although presented in three substantial volumes, the work is in two halves. Vol. 1 contains 29 essays concerning the origin and nature of the sources, each with separate sections considering recent research and interpretation. Its five parts open with a general introduction to documents on the colonial Andes (the late Franklin Pease on the chronicles of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; Sabine MacCormack on the classical tradition in the Andes; Gary Urton on the quipu; and Martin Lienhard on indigenous texts). The second, and shortest, part covers colonial administration (Andrien on legal and administrative documentation; John Jay TePaske on economic sources; Noble David Cook on visitas, censuses and other information on population; and Barbara Mundy on the relaciones geográficas). The third part on the Church is, perhaps predictably, the longest (Deeds on Church history; Kenneth Mills on provincial councils; Marie Timberlake on the councils of Lima and diocesan synods; Regina Harrison on doctrinal works; Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz on the dictionaries, vocabularies and grammars of Andean indigenous languages; William Mitchell and Barbara Jaye on pictographic catechisms; Joanne Rappaport on the Jesuit annual letters from Colombia and Ecuador, and José Hernández Palomo on those from Peru; Julián Heras on the Franciscan missions of Peru, and Antonio Menacho on those of the Jesuits in present-day Bolivia). A fourth substantial part devoted to sources on science and arts arguably covers more material that is less familiar to mainstream scholarship and understandably has to take account of wider disciplinary work, as is evident in the sure-footed opening essay by Jorge Cañizares on travel accounts. This is followed by Richard Kagen on urban views; Jorge Ortiz Sotelo on navigation; Marcos Cueto on medicine, botany and natural history; Teresa Gisbert on textual sources for art and architecture; Teodoro Hampe on printing and book production as well as periodicals, newspapers and pamphlets; Raquel Chang-Rodríguez on poetry and prose literature; and Margot Beyersdorff on indigenous performance arts. A brief final section written by Iris Gareis and Catherine Julien considers different collections of documents.

The format of vol. 1 is quite uniform and practically most useful. The essay is the main feature, and the notes and bibliographies are supportive, albeit sometimes quite extensive; sometimes there are appendices that list sources. That form of inventory is one of the principal features of vols. 2 and 3, which are wholly devoted to specific authors and texts, listed alphabetically: vol. 2 runs from A (Academia Antártica) to L (José López de Velasco), with 85 entries; and vol. 3 from M (Alessandro Malaspina) to Z (Agustín de Zárate), with 102. Here the format is complementary, with brief biographical information, commentary and then more reference-related data concerning location, publication history, translations and references to the secondary literature.

Many of the authors in vol. 1 make contributions to vols. 2 and 3, and there is a perceptible degree of overlap, which the editor convincingly justifies. For example, the case of Humboldt (by Michael Dettelbach) naturally appears under travel literature as well as touching on the cases of José Celestino Mutis (by Marta Fajardo de Rueda) and Francisco José de Caldas (by Jorge Cañizares). Not only is the complementarity of information useful, but the distinct perspective of different authors also enriches the picture. It is enormously helpful to have read the general survey of visitas in the first volume before engaging with the dozen or so specific cases in vol. 3. Equally, Lienhard's early discussion of ‘what constitutes an indigenous text’ provides a suggestive introduction to, say, ‘Incas nietos de conquistadores’ (by Catherine Julien). Understandably, there is great variety among the entries, some of which are devoted to a handful of documents and are barely more than a page in length, and some of which are on major collections and expeditions. The approach has been purposefully inclusive, allowing, for instance, the consideration (by Jean-Jacques Decoster) of Bartolomé de las Casas, who never set foot in the Andes but who relied heavily on the work of Pedro de Cieza de León (considered separately by Franklin Pease) in his powerful and still influential written work. In another sensible editorial decision, most of the writers involved in the eighteenth-century expeditions led by La Condamine and Malaspina are considered (by Monica Barnes and José Ortiz Sotelo) under those entries. Equally, not all of the philologists and grammarians considered by Sabine Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz's admirably detailed essay in vol. 1 reappear later, but when sufficiently important, as in the case of the specialist in Aymara, Ludovico Bertoni (by Xavier Albó), they receive specific treatment.

This is a stylish work of high scholarship, not a set of coffee-table tomes. The illustrations are monochrome, designed precisely to illustrate commentaries on the texts; they are well chosen and finely reproduced for their purpose. The maps also complement the text without crowding it out with unnecessary detail.

The sheer range of this work sensibly precludes any single reviewer making a comprehensive assessment. Experts in each of the multiple areas covered might well be able to suggest pertinent additions or subtractions, but the strong sense imparted by these books is of a deeply knowledgeable and extensively consultative judgement, from the choice of individuals and texts to the range of supplementary detail provided. It is evidently the case, though, that coverage is more modest for the post-colonial period, with very few entries on the mid-nineteenth century for the regions beyond Peru. Since so much of the material bears the hallmark of careful consideration, there must be a reason for the absence of a list of the contributors, their institutional affiliation and their principal publications. Perhaps they are too many and too well known? They are certainly modest as well as being accomplished scholars, notably under-promoting their own publications, even though several of the essays here represent magisterial syntheses of books either already published or, at the time of preparation, still in evolution. Sadly, some of the contributors have already died, and the necessary longevity of such a major intellectual undertaking means that it will still be read when others are no longer around. It is, on the other hand, quite liberating to roam around a set of great scholarly works without the impedimenta of endless and earnest acknowledgements, which have become the twenty-first century's literary echo of the sixteenth century's sumptuary laws. Every library with a genuine interest in supporting the study of Andean and Latin American history needs to have this excellent work within its collection.